Edinburgh

Behold, Edinburgh, Scotland's capital (and seat of the Scottish Parliament) and second-largest city behind Glasgow. Edinburgh lies in the southeastern part of Scotland along the Firth of Forth, which provides access to the North Sea. Our stay in Edinburgh was brief (dinner & a haunted graveyard tour and then the morning the next day), so we were limited in what we had time to do. The main districts in central Edinburgh are Old Town and New Town, both of which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites by the way. We concentrated on Old Town, which includes Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile-- a high street shopping mecca for all things touristy or plaid (speaking of which, didya know using "plaid" to refer to a checked cloth is an American thing? I didn't.)-- St Giles Cathedral, and Holyrood Abbey/Holyroodhouse.

One of the first things you might notice approaching Edinburgh is Arthur's Seat pictured above. The hills here are the remnants of a long-extinct volcano, eroded by glacier activity long ago. The crag upon which Edinburgh Castle is located is another extinct volcano. There are good hiking trails if you want to climb to the peak of Arthur's Seat, or so I've heard, but alas we didn't have time to go check them out. There are a number of ancient hill forts nestled in the crags, including several thought to belong to the Votadini, who are recorded as one of the British tribes north of Hadrian's Wall during the Roman period. Add a few centuries of language change, and they were known as the Gododdin, who ultimately were defeated by the Angles as recorded in a poem from around 600 AD called Y Gododdin.

Speaking of Edinburgh Castle, ta da! Edinburgh Castle is built high on an imposing crag, dominating the city skyline. The site, chosen for obvious defensive features, has been inhabited for almost three thousand years, with the castle dating to at least the 1100s. This was the royal residence for the kings of Scotland until 1603, when the kingdoms of Scotland and England were united under one king, James VI of Scotland, who inherited the throne of England from Elizabeth I, thus becoming James I of England as well.

If you visit, be sure to be there before 1 pm to get a good spot to watch "Shannon the Cannon," a District Gunner with the 105th Regiment Royal Artillery, fire the One O'Clock Gun, a time signal originally used to notify ships in the Firth of Forth of the time. While most people crowd around the gun itself, you can get better views from the level above, outside St Margaret's Chapel. You'll want to scope out a spot about half an hour before hand, or befriend someone who did and get them to take pictures for you. I just went with awkward reaching around the heads of people in front of me.

The shopping thoroughfare leading up to the Castle is known as the Royal Mile. Here you can find all kinds of tartan, scarves, kilts, postcards, pipes, tobacco, etc etc etc. But from my not-so-extensive travels of Scotland, I'll just mention that you can find better deals on the same items outside of Edinburgh- Stirling has plenty of nice shops priced a bit cheaper, and if you're making a stop in Inverness up north, there are a few nice shops there with slightly better prices.You'll also probably find that prices are a bit better off the Royal Mile, which charges a premium as the center of tourist traffic. The one caveat to that statement, is Deacon Brodie's.

Ok, yes, this is just a pub. Not so exciting you say. Well, sure, but it is absolutely adorable from the outside and on the inside, and has really good food for reasonable prices, especially for along the Royal Mile. During the lunch rush, they can take awhile to get your food prepared, but as long as you aren't in a rush, it is a great place to grab lunch or dinner. And conveniently located across the street from St Giles' Cathedral.

St Giles' is a lovely early Gothic building, with some lovely (but relatively young) stained glass. There has been a church on the site since the early Middle Ages, but the cathedral as it stands now was originally built in 1120s; at this point, it was likely relatively small, and would have been Norman (Romanesque if you're continental) in style. At some point it was rebuilt and expanded; this larger early Gothic building suffered damage from a fire in 1385 and was repaired and expanded into the building you see today.

Now, I've bemoaned the fact that most cathedrals do not allow photography inside on several occasions now. But here, I have nothing but praise. St Giles' does not charge admission to visit, but they do ask for a 2 pound donation if you want to take pictures. Totally reasonable, right? I don't know why more churches don't adopt this idea. Fantastic.

To wrap up Edinburgh, I figured I'd finish with a cute story. Here you see Greyfriars Bobby, a little Skye Terrier devoted to his owner. Now, there's several different stories, but the general story line goes that Bobby belonged to a member of the Edinburgh City Police (in some accounts, he was a watchmen for the Greyfriar Kirk, hence Greyfriar and a "bobby" in the UK is slang for a policeman) in the 1850s. Anyway, the dog's owner passed away, and for the next 14 years, Bobby guarded his master's grave until his own death. Sweet, right? Sadly, most of the story is embellished fiction, the creation of an American author who heard the story from a friend who had traveled to Scotland and heard the story there. And like any good game of telephone, much gets lost along the way. In actuality, it is most likely that the dog, who may have even just been a stray, stayed by the grave because a restaurant just outside the graveyard used to toss scraps over the gate into the cemetery. That, coupled with a stone bench thing just next to the grave in question, meant the dog had steady access to food and shelter. Ah well.

There's more photos from Edinburgh Castle, St Giles', and from a haunted cemetery tour we went on through Greyfriar's Graveyard up on flickr if you're interested. Until next time~