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Published: October 27th 2011
After a business trip for the week to Copenhagen (didn't see much more than our hotel and convention center there unfortunately), I decided to make a detour on the way back to the States to visit my friend Nina in Edinburgh. Nina has been in Scotland, working on a project for some months now. After a late arrival and a few last hours of work before putting the laptop down, I was off to explore the city.
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Edinburgh Castle
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First stop was Edinburgh Castle. The city was somewhat windy across the board, and as I started making may way up to where the castle was, the wind grew stronger and stronger. The castle is situated on top of a tall, sheer rock face that is randomly in the middle of the city. I can see why this was selected as a defensive area, as the mini-mountain seems completely misplaced. It's a nearly vertical climb up to the castle, and apparently, a small force of Highlanders took the castle by stealth by climbing up the rock face in the middle of winter - how they could have pulled that off is beyond me.
The castle is well-signed inside to
denote what happened, and there are complimentary tours every 30 minutes with cheerful guides. As you make it up the to the top of the castle, which is a climb, it gets more and more windy. At the top, we could barely hear the guide at all.
There's tons of interesting stuff inside the castle, and I was there for hours. From historical relics, such as the nearly 1000 year old St. Margaret chapel, to still actively used barracks for the Scottish military divisions. Among many things, I was able to see the "Scottish Honours", which were used for centuries in the coronation ceremonies. The most important item, the "Stone of Destiny", upon which the Scottish royalty must sit during the coronation had been taken to England for nearly 700 year before being returned by Queen Elizabeth II, but it will be taken back to London for the next monarch's coronation. I was also able to walk in the rooms where James I of England (who succeeded Queen Elizabeth I) was born, and saw the Scottish Cavalry and Army museums which had several interesting relics from centuries of military action. The most unexpected site was a tour of the
vaults where POWs since before the American War of Independence had been housed. POWs had been kept there until World War II. They've done a fantastic job of preserving a lot of the relics there such as wooden doors inscribed with graffiti from generations of sailors who were jailed there, counterfeit money the POWs made to try to bribe their jailors to let them out, and even a miraculous model ship that was created out of scraps of wood.
What To Eat
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My stomach eventually started rumbling and I headed out to try to find something that was authentically Scottish. After bypassing blocks full of very touristy looking places, I finally found what looked like a pub full of locals. The menu was overwhelming, as I'm a fan of blood pudding, was pretty sure I'd like haggis (chopped innards and oats stuffed into a sheep's stomach and cooked), and will go for any kind of sausage really. I finally settled on a venison sausage/blood pudding combo, which was great.
Ghost Tours
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After walking around downtown Edinburgh for a while, and getting a good lay of the land, I signed up for a ghost tour with Mercat Tours, which
Electro-Magnetic Field Detector
These are supposed to pick up ghosts, that supposedly emit an electro-magnetic fieldwas billed as being a very scientific and historically based exploration of reputedly haunted areas. Some of the other tour group members showed up with special electronic gear to record ghosts, and two women were showing off pictures of apparitions they'd seen in a church in Glasgow, talking a big game about how they ghost hunted as a hobby. We were shortly taken down to the "vaults", which had been built centuries earlier as storage space for shops in the above-ground tenements, but due to faulty construction that let in the damp with little ventilation for candles, were abandoned by legitimate businessmen. Instead, the Scottish underbelly set up shop and for centuries, the scum of Edinburgh used the spot for their illegal dealings, leading to what are possibly many of the apparitions we see today.
The guide was very good, and really brought everything alive, showing us areas where ghosts had been commonly sighted. We took some pictures with flash which apparently is a way to catch "orbs", and were given electo-magnetic field detectors, as ghosts apparently let of electo-magentic energy that can be picked up by these devices. One of the reputed "ghost hunters" started to feel a
Haggis
Done gourmet-style sense of foreboding or something, and asked the guide to take her back aboveground, and we kept on taking pictures, and searching for hauntings with the detectors. The guide took us through the vaults. One woman claimed to have felt a presence, and smelled cheap whiskey in the air, but the ghosts apparently weren't very interested in me.
Haggis at Last
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After the ghost tour, I met up with Nina as she got out of work, and we made it to a classy pub. Of course, I had to try haggis, which ended up being much milder than I expected. It's possible that they also made somewhat "gourmet"-style at that pub. We then went on to the Three Sisters bar, and was taken aback by the drinking habits of many of the Scots there.... they were downing glasses full of whiskey like it was beer, and then just getting refilled. The place was a lot of fun, but we left somewhat early to go on a day trip the next day.
Stirling
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After a great breakfast, where I got to try real honeycomb (ate it with a croissant), Nina and I set on to figure out where to
The Sword of William Wallace
It's amazing that this thing is still around after all of these years visit. We settled on Stirling, which is a town an hour away from Edinburgh by train with a university, castle and the monument to William Wallace, best known from Braveheart, the movie.
We went straight from the train station to the monument, which included a pretty steep hike up to the mini-mountain where the monument was built. As in Edinburgh, the, higher we got, the windier things became. The monument was very interesting, and had a lot of interactive historic displays, such as a holographic William Wallace who narrated his life. The highlight was seeing William Wallace's sword, which survives to this day. It was quite nicked and bent out of shape - I guess it had seen a lot of action, and is also pretty huge. Apparently, due to the size, William Wallace must have been nearly 6 foot 6 to wield it effectively. By the time we got to the top of the monument, the wind outside was so strong that it was nearly pushing us. We could see the beginning of the Scottish highlands from there though, and also the bridge where Wallace staged his most decisive defeat of the English centuries ago.
Chilled from
Broken Glass on the Floor of Opabar
Most of the dance floor walls looked like this at the end of the night. the wind, Nina and I took a cab to a pub, and ordered soups ASAP. I also got some Chicken Balmoral, which is chicken stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon, and then doused in gravy. I estimate that it'll take about 15 miles of running to clear that from my system, but man it was good.
We went from the pub to the castle, taking in the downtown of Stirling, which is quite quaint, and decided to not go in the castle, as, it's mostly restored from the 1800's and doesn't have as much to offer. We instead headed to the cemetery next door which featured some beautiful headstones, and looked like something out of a movie. After a coffee at an amazing, very scholarly-looking coffee shop, we got back on the train, back to Edinburgh.
Some Scottish Nightlife
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After a quick dinner at Nina's hotel, we headed to Opalounge, a relatively upscale disco. Things were pretty slow, but, in the span of 15 minutes, the dance floor went from empty to a sea of people. The most surprising aspect, was that the Scots don't seem to much believe in putting glasses somewhere safe. The bar was only
using glassware, and when someone was done, they'd either drop, or place the glass or beer bottle on the floor, There were rolling glasses all over the place on a very crowded dance floor, and when the lights came on at the end of the night, I could see broken glass and debris lining all the walls. Don't wear sandals here! In any case, the club was a lot of fun, and we didn't make it home until very late.
Don't Want to Leave
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After a relatively late start to the morning, we enjoyed another sumptuous brunch, and I was off to the airport, to connect with my international flight back to the USA. Even though I was only there for about two days, I felt like I saw and did a ton, and would love to go back to Scotland for longer...
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Rishi
non-member comment
Edinburgh
Nice, dude! I loved Edinburgh and Scotland in general when I visited my uncle in Glasgow in 2003. Very pretty and so peaceful. Loved the people's accents too. Glad to see you're still the explorer.