Edinburgh: Murder and Mystery Tour

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We booked a murder mystery tour through Witchery Tours. We were to meet in front of the Witchery restuarant, near the castle, at 7pm. Our route took us through the Princes Street Gardens, where we grabbed another Toastie from the German Christmas Market for dinner. The air was dense and wet, and it started to rain. Not wanting to be late, we arrived at the Witchery entirely too early and sat outside in the cold and wet for a while.

Across the street, we watched a line (or "queue," as it were) form. This wasn't just any line. The line wound from the castle above us down the streets below and out of sight. Literally, the line was over a mile long. I asked a woman what people were queueing for, and she explained to me that it was for a festival at the castle for St Andrew's Day. She said it's free, and there are dancers and people playing bagpipes and fireworks. She suggested we go, and I really wanted to, except that we'd already paid for our murder mystery tour, and Andrew was looking forward to it.

Our tour guide arrived promptly at 7pm and was dressed as a ghost. His partner was with him and wore a Medieval costume. It was the outfit worn by people who handled the dead during the time of The Black Death. It included a leather mask with a nose attachment that hung down like an elephant's trunk. Apparently, they used to fill that with herbs and flowers to block the smell and to supposedly help prevent themselves from being sick. He wore a long gown and the St Andrew's cross on his back and front. We learned that the plague first hit England. People thought it was God's punishment to the English people, and so they wanted to protect themselves by identifying themselves as Scottish. They did this by wearing St Andrew's cross.

The tour normally goes up to the castle, but we couldn't go there on account of the festival for St Andrew's Day. We were led through closes (tiny alley ways) up to the old edge of Edinburgh, where a city wall once stood. Our tour guide described the city back in Medieval times. The closes were much narrower--about 3 feet wide. The buildings on either side were much higher. Instead of their current 2-6 stories, they stood 6-10 stories high. He talked about how, at a specific time each day, a man would walk through the city letting people know to empty their waste buckets. As he described people throwing their buckets of human waste out the windows, his assistant sprinkled us with water. It had its desired effect. I was very grossed out.

The tour continued on, and our tour guides were very personable and entertaining. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, but I don't think the tour was really what we'd imagined and hoped it would be. Instead of hearing chilly tales of things that happened inside the closes of Edinburgh, our guides mostly just talked about executions that took place in the city over the last few hundred years. They showed us some of the places people were executed at, told us the reasons for the executions, and described how the executions were performed. The tour was about an hour and fifteen minutes, and I'd say only about 15 minutes of the tour was spent on anything outside of state executions in Scotland. To me, that information has little to do with murder nor mystery. Actually, there really was nothing mysterious about the whole tour at all. It didn't even satisfy my curiousity about the closes that run through Edinburgh. It was enjoyable, though, and we had a good time. I guess that's what counts. It left us just wishing we learned more, though, and so we might go check out The Real Mary King's Close tour instead.

As we wound around Old Town on our tour, a parade passed by for St Andrew's Day. Later, we walked by Mercat Cross. Our tour guide pointed it out as a place where some people were executed. I thought it was neat to see because it was lit up with the Scottish flag for St Andrew's Day. I took a photo.

When the tour ended, we left feeling entertained but disappointed. I kind of wished we'd gone to the St Andrew's Day festival instead, but oh well. We walked around town to try to find a hot bowl of soup. All of the restaurants were packed full. We've discovered there is often no seating at places here. In fact, some cafes offer lower prices if you take your food or drink to go ("take away"). I love coffee shops, and a lot have the prices of their coffee listed as "£1.40 out/ £1.50 in." Anyway, we had difficulty finding any place with seating on this Friday night, and we eventually settled back at the vegetarian cafe on Thistle and Hanover. We each got a bowl of hot tomato soup. When we were warmed up, we purchased some shortbread to go and had it in our room with a hot mug of tea.

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Photos

Our tour guides
The guide on the left is dressed in an outfit worn by the people who handled the dead bodies from the plague.

St Andrew's Cross on Mercat Cross
They projected the Saint Andrew's cross onto Mercat Cross on St Andrew's Day.

Our Evening Snack
Andrew and I made mugs of tea and enjoyed them with fresh shortbread. Yum!