Royal Mile and Harry Potter

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Mike has left us and we are now on our own to wander the streets of Edinburgh. Let's see if we can do this.

We only had one ticket today and that was for the Real Mary King's Close tour at 10:30 am. That means we finally get a chance to sleep in. Yeah! Well, we were all slow moving so we barely made the tour. Thank goodness for the Premier Inn receptionist and a quick cab.



Real Mary King's Close

I had no clue why this attraction was called a 'close'. I actually kept telling everyone that we were going to Mary King's Closet. Lesson time, it is actually called 'Close' because close means street. So, in American terms this would actually read Mary King's Street.

The main street in Edinburgh is called the Royal Mile. At the top of the Royal Mile is the Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh Castle sits at the top o the hill. At the bottom of the hill was where the North Locks (lake) was but over the years this lock was drained and now the Princess Gardens is situated there.

Off the Royal Mile were little offshoot streets called closes. These streets were very narrow and these are the streets were the residents of Edinburgh lived. Mary King's Close was one of the wider streets.

The tour begins explaining the layout and why we were walking underground. The reason that the tour is underground is because they have built government buildings above the old resident quarters. Back in the day were we were walking was opened to the sky. When the buildings began to go up the residents were given an eviction notice and 40 pounds. No one actually lived underground but the structures of the houses still exist because the new structures inadvertently sealed and preserved the homes underneath.

We also walked through a stable and workshop.

They walked us through a couple of homes which were about the size of a Master bedroom. This room/house was the living room, kitchen and bathroom all in one. They could have up to 12 people live in one room. Some of these houses had windows but others did not. In order to have a window you actually had to pay a 'sunshine tax'. If you did not pay this tax then the government would come by and seal up the window.

We were not allowed to take pictures during the tour.

We bought tickets for the above ground tour but we ended up giving those to a family of 5. We were done with tours. We wanted to go exploring up and down the Royal Mile ourselves.

So far we were managing well roaming around.



Harry Potter

JK Rowling's began writing Harry Potter in the Elephant House just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I am not sure if I have all of the facts straight but the jist is that she could not afford much at the time and she would sit at the coffee shop. The coffee shop owners actually tried to kick her out but she would buy coffee so that she could stay longer.

Her daughter went to a school that was in the area. She would walk through the cemetery to pick her daughter up. The names she saw on the gravestones inspired some of the characters in the book.

When we walked into the cemetery we wanted to find these headstones. Um, it's a really big cemetery and the markers are old and worn. This is going to be a daunting task. We saw a couple of tour groups come and go but we could not tell where they were coming from or going to. We asked one group and they pointed us towards the back of the cemetery but we were still just wandering around. We were going to look for about 5 more minutes then move onto the next thing.

Just as we were about to give up we found a gentleman that was wearing a badge. We asked if he knew where the 'Harry Potter markers' were and he said, 'yes, they are right this way, follow me.' Happy Day! What great luck. He is actually a tour guide in the cemetery and he gives these tours all day. He took us to each headstone and even took pictures for us. In a matter of 15 minutes we were done. Megan and Kelsey were surprised because they thought there were only two headstones that inspired Rowling's but there were actually four.

We saw the headstones for Tom Riddle (Voldermort), Potter (Harry Potter), Moody (Mad'eye Moody) and McGonagall (Professor McGonagail).



Bobby's Greyfriar

This is another one of those 'awe' stories that Mike told us yesterday. This story is about a man and his dog. This is a true story. There is a book on it and Disney made a movie in 1961 about it.

John Cray (he was called 'Auld Jock') and his dog Bobby had a special bond. Bobby was a Skye terrier. He followed his master everywhere. When his mater died in 1858 Bobby would not leave the gravesite of his master at the Greyfriar's Churchyard.

Sometime after his master's death there was a law passed that required all dogs to be on a leash. Bobby would not leave the owners grave so he freely roamed the area around the Greyfriar church. With this new leash law Bobby could be sent off to the pound.

To ensure that Bobby would not be sent to the pound the townspeople of Edinburgh voted that Bobby become a citizen of Edinburgh. As a citizen he would not have to abide by the leash law. I guess making him a citizen is like making him human. Wonder if he had to pay taxes, anywho...the town saved Bobby. He continued to roam the street around his masters gravesite until his death in 1972.

The own erected a statue to Bobby, a beloved citizen of Edinburgh.

Yeah for dogs and dog owners. Our dogs have driven my dad crazy on this trip. We have two dogs, Bailey and Charlie. Bailey is attached to me and Charlie is attached to Jeff. Neither of them have been pleased that we left them for vacation. Both have gone missing but then were found. My dad, my sister, brother our neighbor have been going crazy looking for these pups of ours. However, this story end happily because all the dogs are safe and sound now and we can continue on our trip knowing our puppies are happy and safe.



Street Performers

Much like Mallory Square in Key West or Bourbon Street there are street performers and vendors. These performers and vendors were all up and down the Royal Mile.

There was your normal performers like the bag piper player, the guitar player and the juggler. There were characters that I didn't understand, there was a storm trooper and some alien predator. Don't know how those relate to castles but people were taking pictures.

There is this lady that has about every inch of her face pierced. She has a couple of world records. One for lifting items with her nose ring and another for the number of piercings. She was pretty proud of herself because you couldn't just take a picture of her. She required 1 pound. All the other street performers you just throw money in their hat if you like them. She wouldn't do that. You had to pay her. Those piercings aren't going to pay for themselves!

We walked along and looked at the folks that were pretending to be statues and took a few pictures beside them. They were pretty cool.

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Our day in Edinburgh was winding down. We walked down the hill to the Princess Garden area and ate a light lunch and had some ice cream. We watched another street performer and then we did a little shopping.

The boys and Megan have become obsessed with playing cards. They have been playing card games every place we sit for more than 5 minutes. Each night they have been playing cards in the lobby until the bar closes at midnight. The receptionist didn't mind at all. I think they liked having them there.

Kelsey and I went out to check out the Edinburgh nightlife for a couple of hours while the kids were playing cards and mom was resting. Edinburgh did not disappoint. It was an interesting evening. Everyone loved Kelsey's accent and we heard Sweet Home Alabama played at a piano bar.

Tomorrow we travel to London.

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