Once nicknamed “Athens of the North”, Edinburgh was built on seven hills, which are extinct volcanos. The big three are Castle Rock (where Edinburgh Castle is located), Calton Hill (mainly a park with some monuments), and Arthur’s Seat (a windswept crag that has evidence of Iron Age and Bronze Age settlements and is still essentially wild). A fourth is called Corstorphine Hill and was where our hotel was located for this visit.
Due to a mix-up, the hotel had decided that my mom and I were one person instead of two and had given us a small room with a twin bed. They were all booked up and so didn’t have any other rooms. Our tour director switched with us since his room was large enough to add a rollaway bed – sort of. I needed to climb across Mom’s bed to get to the rollaway, but we were only staying for two nights. We had been in close quarters together before and survived, so we figured we could make it through this too.
The central part of Edinburgh is divided into two sections – the Old Town and the New Town. The Old Town is mainly along the trail of lava that flowed down from Castle Rock to where Holyrood Palace (the Queen’s official residence when she is in Edinburgh) is located. The group of roads that follow the flow is called The Royal Mile. The Old Town is mostly medieval and has tall buildings (six to eight stories) that were built prior to the invention of lifts (elevators). Depending upon where the building is located, you can go in one door and actually be on the fourth floor, with the ground floor accessed from another street on another side of the building (that happened with a hotel in which I stayed on a later trip).
The New Town is Georgian and was built mostly on the flat ground on the other side of a loch (that was then drained). It is a very unique city. I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced another place quite like it.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, it was considered to be quite intellectual, which was when it acquired the nickname “Athens of the North”. There are several universities and private schools plus loads of museums. Edinburgh has been home to several authors, including Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Rankin, and J. K. Rowling. Numerous philosophers, artists, scientists (such as Charles Darwin), physicians, inventors (such as Alexander Graham Bell), architects, and engineers have also called Edinburgh home.
Just the other side of Arthur’s Seat from Holyrood Palace is a very old, tiny village called Duddingston. It has been settled for several centuries and has a pub called the Sheep Heid Inn that dates back to 1360. That was where we went for dinner on our first night in Edinburgh. The place also has a skittles alley. Skittles is a much older variety of, and forerunner to, bowling.
On this trip, we were taken around town the next morning and then dropped off at Edinburgh Castle. We had a ticket for admission, but not a guided tour, so we could explore at our own pace. Then, the rest of the day was free until we were to be picked up in the late afternoon in front of the Hard Rock Café on George Street in the New Town. Edinburgh was the one location on this particular tour where we had plenty of time to explore.
Since Mom and I had been to Edinburgh Castle before, we didn’t spend a lot of extra time there. But we definitely wanted to see the Scottish Crown Jewels as well as the Stone of Scone (which had finally been returned to Scotland in 1996 after King Edward I had taken it in 1296. It had spent 700 years under the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, where we had last seen it). We had the entire Royal Mile as well as Holyrood Palace to see. So we did the royal apartments (which included the Crown Jewels) and St Margaret’s Chapel and headed down the road.
Our first stop was Gladstone’s Land. This had been the home of a 17th century merchant. So, a roughly middle class person. It was fun to see. The turnpike stairs were very narrow (and the house six stories in height). It seemed to be a quite accurate portrayal of Edinburgh life in the early 1600s. They had these things to fit over one’s shoes call pattens, the purpose of which was to be able to keep your feet above the filth found in the streets. This was in the time of the contents of chamber pots being pitched out of the windows.
Our next stop was lunch, followed by visits to St Giles’ Cathedral (where John Knox preached) and John Knox’s House (where he died). In between was Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. Deacon Brodie was Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for “Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde”. He actually ended up being hanged on a scaffold that he had designed.
Holyrood began with a legend. King David I of Scotland had a vision of the cross (or Holy Rood) and built Holyrood Abbey on the spot where the vision led him in 1128. The ruins are still there. In the early 1500s, King James IV of Scotland (grandfather of Mary, Queen of Scots), built a palace next door to the Abbey.
Mary, Queen of Scots had her residence there when, in 1566, her private secretary, David Rizzio, was dragged from the Queen’s private supper room (next to her bedchamber) and murdered in front of the Queen and her ladies by the Queen’s husband, Lord Darnley, and several of his cronies. Darnley was not the brightest bulb in the fixture and was also likely drunk at the time. He ended up being murdered a few years later himself. After Rizzio’s murder (he was stabbed 56 times), Mary fled to Edinburgh Castle to await the birth of her son, James. The room in which he was born is so tiny that there is barely enough room to take a photo (or a decent selfie). He became James VI of Scotland and followed Elizabeth I to the throne of England as James I. He was the fella who commissioned the King James Bible.
After James VI became James I, the palace wasn’t used much as he spent most of his time in London. Once James’ son, Charles I, was beheaded and Oliver Cromwell took over, part of the palace (not the part with Mary’s rooms) was burned down and the rest of the place was not exactly treated with respect. In 1671, after Charles II was restored to the throne, he had Holyrood Palace rebuilt, keeping the tower containing Mary’s rooms intact.
The entire palace is wonderful to visit and I do so every time I am in Edinburgh. In addition to the apartments that had belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots, I especially enjoy the Gallery. This is because it is lined with portraits of every monarch Scotland has ever had, back to ancient times. Since most of these people never had a likeness made when they were alive, there is no way of knowing what they actually looked like. The artist apparently used the same model a lot as most of the early portraits look alike. I understand the sentiment behind all of those portraits. But I find it quite amusing.
I also like the bed in the King’s Bedchamber. In the Victorian era, it was displayed in Mary, Queen of Scots bedchamber. Tourists were told that it had been Mary’s bed. The reality is that the bed was made nearly 100 years after Mary was executed. It was the correct time period for the bedchamber that had been created by Charles II in the 1670s, however, so it was moved there. That also gives me a chuckle. So glad that present day historians are a little more accurate regarding their facts. The current bed in Mary’s bedchamber wasn’t hers either, but at least it is from the right time period.
Photos are not allowed inside Holyrood Palace, which just irritates me to no end. But, what are you going to do? Those are the rules. Fortunately, these days, there are plenty of professional photos on the internet, plus I bought some books with photos back when I was there. Oh, and there is a ghost too. What decent castle or palace doesn’t have at least one ghost?
Getting from Holyrood Palace to the Hard Rock Café on George Street looked so easy on the map. But that wasn’t taking into account that Edinburgh isn’t all on one level. We ended up on some streets that were a couple stories beneath where we wanted to be. It took some reconnoitering and a few flights of stairs to correct the situation. Where we ended up was actually pretty interesting and was very, very old. I think it is included in some of the “haunted Edinburgh” tours.
Once we got to the Hard Rock Café, we still had enough time to sit at one of the outdoor tables and have some ice cream before the tour bus arrived to take us back to the hotel. Some of the other members of our tour group who made it there with time to spare, joined us. The latecomers seemed rather envious when they arrived as we finished our ice cream and the bus was loading up.
When we got back to the hotel, we found that some folks had checked out that day and that we had been upgraded to a Superior Room for the night (What? No suites?). We weren’t going to be in the room much, however, since we had signed up for the Scottish Night option. Nearly every tour to Edinburgh includes this option. An entire ballroom at the hotel where they had it was used and packed to the gills. It was a dinner with Scottish music, both instrumental and vocal, plus some special Scottish dancing and an emcee who was a comedian who’s main line of jokes involved what was or wasn’t worn under the kilt. The music and dancing were good; the food okay; the comedy bleh. It was worth doing the once, but it hasn’t been a repeat experience for me. We did get to try some haggis, which I actually liked and have had a few times since in Scottish restaurants.
The following day, we headed back to Glasgow, making some stops along the way. The first stop was Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce trounced the English army, led by King Edward II, in 1314. Although his father, Edward I, had been quite the soldier and nicknamed “the hammer of the Scots”, Edward II not so much. In the aftermath, England had to recognize Scottish sovereignty and Robert the Bruce as the Scottish king. The two countries remained separate (although the Stone of Scone remained at Westminster Abbey) until James VI of Scotland took the throne as James I of England in 1603.
Although Bannockburn was where Scotland won its independence, it was where I managed to catch a chill that led to a doozy of a cold. It was a cold, dark, blustery day up on that hill where the monument to the Battle of Bannockburn resides. While we were there, it began to rain – in torrents. We headed towards Stirling, but bypassed the town, seeing the castle from a distance. Then we headed west to Aberfoyle – Rob Roy country.
We had lunch in Aberfoyle and watched some sheep dog trials. Those dogs are amazing. Next to where they had the sheep dog trials, they had several birds of prey. They had falconz, hawks and eagles of different types, plus several owls. There was this one, tiny little owl who was dancing to some music only he could hear. He was adorable. I didn’t yet own a video camera, so I couldn’t record him doing his thing, but I did get a photo.
By the time we arrived in Glasgow, I was very ill. We were having a group dinner that night. So I got everything ready for the next day, went and had dinner and came back to the room as early as possible. I did sleep a lot on the plane on the way home. We had to switch again in Amsterdam, but then I had hours before we reached Minneapolis. The flight attendants took pity on me, as they could tell I was quite feverish, and kept pouring liquids down me. Fortunately, we were right next to a lavatory.
