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Geo: 55.9503, -3.18761
"Edinburgh is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again." -Alexander McCall Smith
We had a local guide today named Liz. (She also guides for Rick Steves.) She walked us over to the old town via Princes Street Gardens. This is more of a park than gardens, but there are some well-tended flower beds. The space, which sits below and between Princes Street and the volcano on which the old town is built, used to be the Nor' Loch. (The loch was originally carved by glaciers.) Because the people of the old town would empty their chamber pots down the side of the rock, the Nor' Loch became completely polluted and reeked to high heaven. When it started to stink in the New Town — where the rich lived — something was finally done: the loch was drained and turned into a private garden for the wealthy people who lived along Princes Street. The ordinary Scottish people decided that was a bunch of hooey, the council decided they were right, and pretty soon anyone and everyone could stroll through the gardens.
While still in the New
In Princes Street Gardens
Memorial to Polish soldiers -- their mascot is a bearTown, we walked by the Caledonian hotel, a former railway hotel. It's built to look old, but
we know it was built after the advent of the steam engine. How do we know this? Most of Edinburgh is built of local grey sandstone. The Caledonian, however, is built of red sandstone that would have to have been transported by train to Edinburgh. It's a very attractive hotel, though it doesn't have any relation to any railway company anymore.
Dividing Princes Street Gardens into east and west is an area known as The Mound. There was a tailor who lived in the old town, and he lost money when most of his clients moved to the New Town after it was built. So when the loch was being drained and prepared, he asked that all the dirt that was being shifted be moved to this one area where he was able to create a sort of mud bridge from the old to the New Town. It worked and he got many of his customers back. But then the council saw this and decided it was a good idea, so plans were drawn up to create a proper land bridge across the gardens. In order to do this, however, the council had to compulsorily purchase many houses, tenements and businesses on the old town side. The poor tailor's house and business were both purchased!
We walked up the side of the volcanic rock via a wynd (rhymes with kind), which is a narrow passageway that windingly gets you from one place to another. We got to the Royal Mile and immediately turned into a close. A close is a closed-in area that is reached via a narrow passageway. Because the glaciers that carved the Nor' Loch had also carved away the side of the volcano, the old town is only about 350 meters wide. So these closes and wynds were built extending off of the Royal Mile. They're basically tiny side streets, some of which go somewhere and some of which dead-end into a courtyard. Liz compared the whole set-up to a fish skeleton: the Royal Mile is the backbone, and the closes and wynds are the herring bones.
We came out of the close and walked farther down the mile (which, by the way, is called the Royal Mile because it's almost exactly a mile long and because Edinburgh Castle
is at the top and the Palace of Holyrood is at the bottom; the royals would process along the street to get from the castle to the palace) to a proper cross street that took us to the National Museum of Scotland. We passed the Elephant House along the way, which is where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book.
We only had 45 minutes in the NMS. Liz gave us a brief overview and set us free to see what we liked. I headed for the beautiful gallery that connects the NMS to the former Royal Museum to see Dolly the Sheep. I couldn't find her so asked a young docent. Apparently, Dolly is not on display at the moment (poo!), so I asked the girl to direct me to the Contemporary Scotland exhibit. She asked if I was from America and then got quite chatty when I said I was from Seattle. She wants to go to Seattle and she has a friend who just moved to New York (which sounds so attractive with a Scottish accent!), and it'd be the trip of a lifetime if she could go to America. Anyway, she mentioned that I should
The Connect Gallery
National Museum of Scotland really go up to the roof terrace to see the view. Liz had told us it was closed, so the girl confirmed with another docent that it was, indeed, open. So I legged it up to the 7th floor and was pleased to find that there were only three other people on the terrace. It was such a beautiful day and the view was fantastic. I think I was the only one of our group to have gone up there and gotten some hopefully decent photos.
And then I finally found the Contemporary Scotland exhibit and had only ten minutes till I needed to rejoin the group. I could have spent ten minutes at the display on the Referendum alone!
We crossed the street to peek at the statue of Greyfriars Bobby and then walked into the Greyfriars churchyard to listen to the story: policeman Jock has a Skye terrier named Bobby to accompany him on his beat; Jock dies and Bobby refuses to leave his grave except at 1:00 every day when he trots off to the pie shop that he and Jock used to go to; Bobby gets his bowl of water and a bone and returns to
Edinburgh Castle
View from the roof terrace at the NMS keep vigil at the grave. Victorians get to hear of this and flock to the site just to watch the little dog. Bobby (or more likely several Bobbys) lived to the ripe old age of 16 and is buried under a prominent headstone in Greyfriars churchyard. Liz also mentioned that in the churchyard are buried a McGonagle and a Thomas Riddle — did J.K. Rowling stroll through the churchyard searching for inspiration?
We returned to the Royal Mile and had a quick visit inside St. Giles Cathedral. A church has been on the site since the 5th century, but the current building dates from the 14th century and was heavily restored in the 1800s. It has beautiful stained glass, all of which is from the 19th century (John Knox ordered the original stained glass destroyed), except for a few 20th-century windows. In one chapel dedicated to the memory of WWI dead, I noticed the name Scrymgeour; J.K. Rowling must have drawn inspiration from the cathedral as well!
We were free for an hour then, and several of us ended up at the Cathedral Cafe for lunch. I sat with John and Debbie from Georgia and had a chickpea salad
with oatcakes. It was very tasty, though I did have to fish out slimy slices of eggplant. John and Debbie's daughter had been studying in London when the terrorist bombs went off in 2005. Debbie said that was a frantic day for her.
The group met up again at 1:00 and walked back up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. Liz was able to take us all in but then had to turn us over to a castle guide. He (Brian) walked us around and gave us some idea of what each building housed, etc. It's a really large complex that's been used as not only a royal residence and fortress, but a military training barracks and a prison. Americans taken during the "American War of Independence" were sometimes imprisoned in the castle. There's even a wooden door into which a prisoner carved a representation of the Stars and Stripes. I walked through the prison later and it's very dungeon-like, although the prisoners had cots and hammocks and apart from not having any natural light, it didn't look all that bad.
The oldest building in the castle grounds is St. Margaret's Chapel, built in the 12th century. It's very tiny
The Scott Monument and Calton Hill
The Scott Monument is the grey spire on the left. The brownish building in the foreground is the Scottish National Gallery. and has just a few small, narrow windows. Still the inside is bright and cheery, though very plain. Margaret was a queen of Scotland in the 1100s, and her son David built the chapel in her memory after her death.
The Scottish National War Memorial is also on the grounds. It's very somber and pretty and very Victorian. It mostly commemorates the dead of WWI, but I saw a few mentions of other campaigns. I also found a carved-in-stone typo. The quote was something like "we will bear your burden" but "bear" had been spelled "bare." Hmmm!
I left the castle and walked back to The Mound so I could see the Scottish National Gallery. It's a bit like the Courtauld in London: smallish but with some really good stuff. There's a beautiful Botticelli of the Virgin adoring the sleeping Christ Child, and a dramatic Rubens of Salome presenting the head of John the Baptist to an astonished Herod. There were two paintings in particular that I really wanted to see, and I'm lucky that one of them has just returned to the collection. John Singer Sargent's painting of Lady Agnew is tremendous. Lady Agnew is young and pretty, and
Suave lion
On guard at Edinburgh Castle she sits back in a chair and stares directly at the viewer. It really does feel as if she's looking right through you and sizing you up, and pretty soon she'll say something clever and cutting. The other piece I specifically wanted to see was Sir Henry Raeburn's painting of the Reverend Robert Walker ice skating. You've probably seen it: tall thin man in black clothes and a top hat skating in a sort of arabesque posture. I was really happy to see both of those in person. There were also several Raphaels, many Rembrandts, a Van Gogh or two, and even a couple of Canalettos. Lovely!
I had dinner on my own at a Tex-Mex place called Chimichanga. Tex-Mex cuisine isn't the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of Scotland, but it was really pretty good. I had a Cajun chicken quesadilla, and I swear it was made from a 40" tortilla that was cut into sixths. I only ate half of it. For dessert I picked up a packet of mint-chocolate caramel Mentos from Boots. Yummers!
And we're off again tomorrow!
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Aunt Marianne
non-member comment
Another full day. Thanks