Advertisement
St. Giles Cathedral
Very old apparently like 800 years old or something to that effect. A very pro-Covenanter church Hello Everyone Back Home!
Today was a beautiful fantastic day. Woke up around 9:00 to a warm day and sunshine - in Scotland no less! It was a fair bit better than yesterday which was a bit drizzly for most of the day and cool.
I was feeling pretty industrious so I decided to climb to the peak of Arthur's Seat which is an escarpment/old volcano at the end of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. It took me a good hour to get to the top and I had to stop more than once along the way to catch my breath and have some water. It got quite steep and the air is a bit thin for my Canadian lungs I think. Plus it was hot - probably around 28C. By the time I got to the top I was feeling pretty accomplished and went around taking pictures. The view was absolutely fantastic - clear too! I gotta hand it to the Scots for being fit - I had not one but TWO middle aged men jog past me, a man carrying a bike hike up next to me and a woman carrying a baby as well. What is
The Royal Mile
Just a quick glance down the road at the Royal Mile wrong with these people? This isn't some little rolling hill you go up for an evening stroll. It's an old VOLCANO (see the pictures, you'll know what I mean...). Well after spending a bit of time at the peak basking in my achievement at having conquered the mountain, I headed back down to check out the ruins of St. Anthony's which is a little 15th century kirk. Pretty cool 😊 I think the most fantastic part of the day is that I did the impossible - I got a sunburn in Scotland. Woo hoo!
After spending a few obligatory hours doing research at the library I went on a ghost tour of old Edinburgh and the Real Mary King's Close. All along the Royal Mile you see these little side streets branching off called "closes". They each have names attached to them and they run on forever. They're actually pretty neat to check out. So this tour was down one of the original ones that's now buried under some building. Apparently it's haunted by ghosts but we didn't really see anything. At one point I saw what looked like a dog out of the corner of my eye. I
Campbell's Close
This one's for Auntie Lisa & Uncle Marc. There are dozens of little closes running parallel to each other off the Royal Mile. The Campbell one happened to be particularly nice. didn't think much of it - I mean out of all the ghosts to see who'd think of a dog? - but then later on in the schpeal they do the girl said that there was the ghost of a dog. Strange no?
In search of more excitement, the girl I'm rooming with (a Texan named Lauren on her way back from teaching in China for a year) and I are going to go to a different one tomorrow. It heads over to a graveyard to check out the Mackenzie Poltergeist. Apparently it actually goes after people on the tour and there are warnings all over the place about how you take the tour at your own risk etc. Should be fun :D I'm looking forward to it!
Planning to check out Greyfriar's Church tomorrow on my way in to the National Archives and possibly the Prince Street shopping center during my lunch. For now though I'm going to get to work on my paper and try to get some of it done since it's due in about 10 days eeps!
Night all!
Jenn
xo
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0418s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
dad
non-member comment
Ian Anderson is a Scot
Jenn, did you know that Ian Anderson hails from Scotland? Och Aye!