Day 14, July 17, 2013:
What luck, another beautiful, sunny
morning. We had an early start today because
the drive to Edinburgh is a bit over an hour and we have lots planned. Edinburgh has an old and a new town. Now the ‘new town’ is a collection of
Georgian buildings all carefully laid out along broad avenues in the 1800’s. The ‘old town’ is what sprung up from either
side of the Royal Mile (the wide cobblestone street running east west between
Edinburgh Castle and the palace of Hollyroodhouse over the last five hundred
years. The ‘old town’ is a dense warren
of closes (alleys) and wynds (narrow lanes) with stairs and vaults that run off
wide expanse of the royal mile which was used by the king to travel from castle
to palace. Many of the closes are but a
meter wide and packed with houses that are several stories high. In its heyday, many of the apartments soared
to 12 or 14 stories and were only accessible by switched back staircases and
narrow foot bridges that ran up the outside of the buildings. The sewage system consisted of terraced
cobble stone or dirt streets that sloped downhill to ‘Loch Nord’ which was a
huge sewage sump to the north of the city proper. Everything got simply thrown out the door
twice a day to the ringing of a bell at the church to be sluiced down to Loch
Nord when it rained. Sanitation was
simply not a high priority in those days.
The Loch is now filled in and is the beautiful Princess Gardens where we
had lunch – I imagined the soil is very fertile with hundreds of years of human
waste underneath.
We started the day at the top of Castle Rock at
the famed Edinburgh Castle where they were in the process of setting up the
massive stadium for the Fringe Festival which starts end of the month. This fortress is the very reason for
Edinburgh’s existence as it was the most easily defended hilltop on the
invasion route from England to Scotland.
This route has been followed by countless armies over the millennia;
from the romans in the first and second centuries up to the Jacobites following
Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. The
castle is formidable, made of black volcanic stone atop rocky crags,
impregnable and huge. It has also played
a key role in Scottish history as a royal palace going all the way back to King
Malcolm of Canmore and Queen Margaret in the 11th century. First and foremost however it was a military
stronghold and was forever being taken and re-taken. It last saw action in 1745 and from then
until through World War I it has been the British army’s main base in Scotland. What can I say, it is a bloody great castle,
lots of cannons (they fire off a 25 pounder at 1:00 daily), a great view and
hordes of tourists. The high point for
me however was seeing the Honours of Scotland.
These are the oldest surviving crown jewels in Europe (sword, scepter
and crown) and were actually hidden away for over a hundred years after the Act
of Union between England and Scotland was signed in 1707. Anyway they were in a vault in a tower in the
castle, locked in a trunk and the door mortared over and kind of forgotten
about until the novelist and amateur archaeologist Walter Scott found them in
an investigation and brought them back to the public. On display here is also the Stone of Destiny
which is just as it sounds, a great stone block upon which every Scottish
monarch is crowned which gives them the authority to rule. So now when a new king is crowned (an English
and Scottish monarch), the stone is shipped to Westminster for the coronation
then returned to the castle vaults for safe keeping. The castle is a great place to visit and a
great place to get separated so we spent most of our time each doing our own
tour until lunch time. We headed off the
rock into the Princess Gardens for a picnic lunch then it was time to wander
the Royal Mile.
If you only have a day in Edinburgh (like we
did) make it a point to wander the Royal Mile.
This broad avenue is lined with shops, filled with street performers and
packs so much interest and atmosphere it is a must stroll. We shopped, watched a man play the saw
brilliantly, others juggled flaming torches on unicycles or simply did the
statue shtick, a man with a marionette was brilliant and earned a couple of
pounds from us. About half way down the
Royal Mile is St Giles Cathedral; build back in the 1400’s with a beautiful
crown spire completed in 1495. The
stained glass windows are stunning and worth a look. This was the heart of Scottish Reformation of
the church and John Knox was the minister here.
Now we come to the Real Mary King’s Close which is an Old Town alley
that was covered over 250 years ago to build the Royal Exchange (trading floor –
like a stock exchange) and is now the City Chambers building. Any way because they simply built right on
top of the medieval close it has been preserved pretty much untouched and can
be visited on tour. It is an interesting
and bit disgusting look into what life was really like in sixteenth and
seventeenth century Edinburgh. You spend
an hour on tour through the labyrinth, under the current city hearing ghostly and
ghastly tales of long ago and well worth the visit.
We ambled all the way down the Royal Mile which
ends at the Scottish Parliament buildings across the street from Hollyrood Park
and of course the Palace. The Scottish
Parliament buildings are not at all what you expect; they are very modern and look a bit like a high-tech prison behind all the security
fencing. Hollyrood Park is a huge green
space around the Palace of Hollroodhouse which is the royal residence in
Scotland. This huge park
(263 hectares) of moors, crags and a loch was the hunting preserve of the
Scottish Monarchs. It has a fantastic
view point atop ‘Arthur’s Seat’ an extinct volcano in the middle of the park which
is tied to the mythology and story of King Arthur. It must be said however that when Queenie visits Scotland, she tends to prefer her castle in Balmoral (which we didn't visit!)
Tired, thirsty and footsore we jumped in the car
and headed to a nice restaurant on the banks of the Firth of Forth (the estuary
where the great river Forth comes to the sea) and dined on fish and chips in
the shadow of the huge bridges that cross the firth. None of us except the driver kept our eyes
open on the drive home but we had a great day, I wish we had time for another
in Edinburgh. Tomorrow, another castle
of course!
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