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Published: August 3rd 2008
The Travelers
Yay! Trip #2!I'm gonna step out-of-order for a spell to write about the most recent trip that I took. I arrived back in London a few days ago and I want to write about it while it is still fresh in my mind.
While I'm a city-girl and love city life, cities can rarely be described as visions of beauty. While I remember Paris and Madrid as being beautiful, my 14-year-old self might not be super trustworthy in that area (my eyes were only tuned in to the beauty of the boys, to be frank). San Francisco and Los Angeles, two cities I have known in depth my whole life, are not exactly pretty. Definitely not LA. Certain areas of San Francisco are stunning, and to me it is beautiful because it is home, but on the whole it's not what I would call a beautiful city. London has beautiful buildings and gardens, and the Thames winding through is nice to see. Same with New York. New York is fantastic and extremely visually appealing in certain ways, but it looks cold and intimidating. Again, not beautiful.
Edinburgh, on the other hand, can only be described as beautiful. It is one of
At first glance
This is the first thing I saw every day when I left my hostel the most beautiful places I have ever seen, and wins the award for most beautiful city I have seen thus far in my travels (although I've heard Amsterdam is also quite stunning. I'll let you know when I get there). It is absolutely enchanting. When I walked up the flight of steps out of Waverly station and turned onto Princes Street, I literally gasped. There, high above on a large cliff, was Edinburgh Castle and the remainder of many old churches, cathedrals and government buildings. This cliff overlooked a large park, the Princes Gardens, which separated the old city from the new. The thing about the new part of Edinburgh is that it also had this pretty charm about it. There wasn't an inch of ugly in the parts of Edinburgh that I saw.
Jessica, Hayley and I made our way down Princes Street next to the gardens towards our hostel, resisting the urge to snap photos every 10 seconds. Our hostel was in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle and was called the Caledonian Backpacker, a funky little place with a weird smell and even weirder residents. Three things that I loved about the Caledonian:
1. Each hall had
Edinburgh Castle
Overlooking the gardens. fantastic hand painted murals of the most interesting things, each one bright, colorful and different from the next.
2. Chris, the Aussie that worked at the front desk and described to us what Caledonian meant. Don't ask me now, because I completely forgot.
3. Seamus, our hostel mate. We never actually got his real name, but we dubbed him Seamus due to his thick Irish accent. An old bloke of at least 70, Seamus has been traveling the globe since retirement and lives in different hostels throughout the year. When we first met him upon check-in, I was a little sketched out to be sharing a room with a strange old man. But after talking to him for five minutes, he became our friend. He was very grandfatherly towards us, making sure we were up in the morning and not hitting snooze too many times. When we'd come in at night, he'd briefly wake up to wish us good night and make sure all three of us were present and accounted for. "Is that you, girls? Did you have a fun day?" He'd also give us little tips of things to do around Edinburgh, where to eat, hear good music
The Old City
Gardens, Old City. I miss this. etc.
After settling in, we set back out to explore the older part of the city. We passed the National Galleries and walked through the Princes Gardens, up a long flight of stairs and then up a windy brick road until we reached the Royal Mile. Royal Mile is the main drag of the old city and is just full of fascinating structures. We made our way down the Mile and just took the sites of the city in. One thing the three of us really wanted to do in Edinburgh was hike to the top of Arthur's Seat, the tallest mountain in Edinburgh (but in reality is not that tall, not even as tall as Mount Diablo). The Seat can be seen from the Royal Mile, so we followed the street until we found a footpath on the mountain's base. We began to climb. It was hot out, we were tired and not wearing proper hiking gear (especially Jessica, who was wearing flats. I luckily decided to wear my Chucks instead of my flip flops that day) but we toughed it out and hiked anyways. It took us about two hours to make it to the top, because we
Arthur's Seat
We hiked up there. It doesn't look too tall, but it was a bit of a trek. kept stopping to look behind us at our progress. At one point I found a ladybug in the grass and decided to take him (it had spots. spots=male) along for the ride on my finger. He chilled with me for a good half hour, until the three of us found different paths to the top and decided to finish it alone. Mr. Ladybug decided to peace out too. The top revealed a magnificent view of Edinburgh on all sides, and you could see as far as the sea. Spectacular view, well worth getting a bit sweaty. On the walk down, we saw something truly odd... a man walking his cats on a leash. On the mountain. No houses in view. I tried to imagine Lucy and Roxy being walked in the great outdoors and had a good laugh. Roxy would be struggling to get free so she could frolic and chase the furlies. Lucy would be howling to be back inside on a cushy blanket and would have to be carried. Once we reached the bottom and made it back to town, we were famished so we stopped at an amazing vegetarian restaurant. We walked back up the Royal Mile,
First look back
My first of many peeks back at the city on my climb. around the castle, through an old churchyard and over towards Princes Gardens yet again. It was dark at this point and we were sleepy. No going out tonight. We settled for a glass of wine at the hostel bar and for making conversation with a cute German backpacker. Said goodnight to Seamus and then hopped into our bunks.
Day two had an early start. We rolled out of bed at 6am to get breakfast and make our way back to Royal Mile. We were going on a hunt for Nessie. Yes. That's right. The Loch Ness Monster herself. We got on a bus that drove us through the Scottish highlands out to the Loch Ness, past the Loch Lomond and a few other Lochs. Once on the banks of Loch Ness, we got on a small boat and set out on a short cruise around the Loch. Monster or no monster, the Loch is really something to see. The water is very dark, almost black even, and is so murky that you cannot see anything below the surface. It is surrounded by hills on all sides. We looked for Nessie and tempted her with food. A few times we
Second look back
Can you see the sea? saw giant clusters of bubbles, which was a good sign but not the sign we had hoped for. We felt Nessie, even if we didn't see her. I believe she's real. I just hope she stays hidden so that she doesn't become a zoo animal or science experiment. The bus made stops at various points and little towns in the highlands, where we saw a magnificent wild stag, sheep farms and a highland bull, which I'd been crossing my fingers we'd see! He was a beautiful animal, the bull. I've never seen anything quite like him. The highlands are really pretty as well. Hills, mountains, wildflowers, lochs galore. Once back in Edinburgh, we went to a Scottish restaurant for dinner. Jessica was adventurous and ordered haggis - she gave it a thumbs up. Even if I was a meat eater, I don't think I could stomach eating sheep stomach. I do admire people who are brave when it comes to sampling weird, local food. We watched a street performer juggle fire, a knife and a melon while balancing on two tourists' shoulders. Our lives were probably in danger just by being within eyesight of this kid. Back to the hostel
Ladybug
My new friend for a change of clothes before heading back out to a club that played some of our favorite indie, alternative, electro and punk songs. We loved the music, but the club just had a really weird vibe. We made it fun and danced the weirdness away.
Our last day was spent sight seeing, and even though we did a lot I still left feeling like there was more of Edinburgh that I wanted to see. We started with Holyrood House, the palace where the Queen resides when she is in Scotland. It was also the place where Mary, Queen of Scots lived before Queen Elizabeth had her imprisoned at the Tower of London. It is interesting to see a working castle still adorned with furniture and tapestries from the 17th and 18th centuries. While I'm sure the Queen doesn't use any of it, it makes me wonder what her modern quarters of the castle look like. The grounds of the castle were my favorite part of it. There was a huge greenhouse that I wish could have been included with the tour. After Holyrood, we split up for a bit to go off and see some museums. Hayley and
I went to the Portrait Gallery (different from the one in London) to see the Vanity Fair exhibit. It was a collection of portraits published in Vanity Fair since the magazine's debut issue in 1913. My favorites were the ones from the 1920s 30s, specifically a portrait of Alice White and another of Jean Harlow. I loved it. Jessica went to an impressionists exhibit, which she really enjoyed. Walked back up to (surprise) Royal Mile to retrace some of our steps and make sure we saw every important thing we wanted to see. Had lunch at a great organic place called Always Sunday. Sidebars: I've really lucked out with finding yummy vegetarian food in a land full of traditional meat dishes. We ended the day by exploring Edinburgh Castle and the Edinburgh Tattoo. The Tattoo is an outdoor performance space, traditionally used for military guard changes. The castle itself is gigantic and has a little village inside the grounds. Great, sprawling stone rooms and passageways to see. The funniest part was when we decided to go into the prisoners quarters. There were signs everywhere saying "Enter if you dare!" and "Only the brave make it through!" etc, so we're preparing
The Top
Awesome. ourselves to be absolutely terrified. I lead the way down the steps while Hayley coaxes Jessica along (she doesn't like dummies, animatronic people, wax figures, or anything else like it). There are dummies of people in the cells and there are speakers along the walls with dialogue playing from them. Anyways, at every turn the three of us bunched together and apprehensively continued. We kept waiting for something to jump out at us, or for something to be really bloody or gross, or for some loud noise to make us all jump. But no. There was nothing like that at all. Besides another tourist coming up behind Jessica and startling her on accident (which had us hysterically laughing afterwards because she screamed), there was literally nothing at all scary about that part of the castle. So what were those signs all about? After the castle, we made our way down the hill and through the park to listen to lovely jazz music during an event that was going on, before going back to the hostel to grab our bags and head out for the train. We didn't get to bid Seamus goodbye, but wherever he is I hope he's doing
The Zaquisha Photoshoot
The top of this glorious mountain reminded us of something else glorious: High School Musical 2. We each reenacted our favorite Zac Ephron moments from the song "Bet On It. Here's me throwing dirt... well.
Going to Edinburgh was special to me for a couple reasons, one being that I am just simply captivated by it's beauty. I was itching to go to Scotland because I had never been before and there were many sites that I was curious to see. My inner geek-dom is about to surface, but I don't even care. Traveling to Edinburgh was fantastic because it is the birthplace of something very near and dear to my heart. Harry Potter. Yes, that's right. I said it. I love Harry Potter, as those of you who know me understand. JK Rowling herself lives in Edinburgh and she found inspiration for the series in this city. She sketched the basic plot ideas on the napkins of a local cafe, the Elephant House, and wrote a great majority of the first three books in the cafe as well. Harry was born. We went to the Elephant House for breakfast on our last day in Edinburgh, and I had a very simple meal of coffee and toast. I imagined that Jo was very poor in those days, being a single mother with young children, so I ate frugally as I'm sure she did.
Bet on it, J-style
Jessica's turn: gotta work on my swing, gotta do my own thing. I doodled on a napkin and couldn't stop thinking the same thing over and over and over: My favorite book (Prisoner of Azkaban) was written here. Right here. We also made a pilgrimage to the Balmoral Hotel, the place where Jo completed Deathly Hallows. Upon finishing, she signed a bust of Hermes in the room with "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007." I hoped that the bust would be on display in the hotel, but it is kept in the actual room. The room has been turned into the JK Rowling Suite, and you can request to stay in that specific room for 900 something pounds a night. That's $1800 US. Apparently it's booked for the rest of the year. Anyways, to see the place where my favorite series began and ended was magical (pun intended) to say the least.
Cheers,
xo Leah
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Lori
non-member comment
sending hugs
Hello Miss Leah, I love reading your blog. It immediately takes me far away from Danville. I truly feel as if I am traveling along with you and your friends. Sounds like you are having a wonderful time. I send along a big hug. As my grandmother always used to say....Enjoy everything you do!....