Edinburgh, Scotland June 2011

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spit here for luck
Castle at the top of the Royal Mile
















We rolled across the border into Scotland and did a photo stop. Once in Edinburgh we checked into King James Thistle Hotel **** at Princes Street & Leith Street-a perfect location to walk a couple of blocks to the Royal Mile.

A city tour of Edinburgh really helped to orient us to this city. Edinburgh is at 56* North Latitude which is the same Alaska. The weather was brisk this morning.
We drove around the corner from the hotel and there was a Catholic church with a relic of St. Andrew inside. Most of the churches here in Scotland are Presbyterian.
We went by the Bank of Scotland- they have their own currency recognized by the Bank of England. Finance is a big deal in Edinburgh with 25% of the population dealing with financial matters.

A lot of the architecture in Edinburgh is Neoclassical from 1776 and the time of George III. On the tour we saw Robert Louis Stevenson's home: wrote Treasure Island and Child’s Garden of Verses-a row house with a blue door.There are cobblestone streets here in this district.#51 Albyn Place is the former home of Sir James Young Simpson-the inventor of chloroform.

The Edinburgh Medical School is premier in the world—there are 4 universities here with a total of 45,000 students. The New Town District and Charlottes Square are famous because Alexander Graham Bell was born here in 1847. There is a high tourism rate in Edinburgh.

The Balmoral Hotel is almost across the street from our hotel and is very famous- near the rail lines too. There is a statue of the Duke of Wellington on the corner next to our hotel. There are 5 million people living in Scotland. High Street is known as the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and is the connector between Holyrood Castle and EdinbUrgh Castle up on the top of the hill. It is the main shopping street of Edinburgh.Down at the Queens Gallery of Holyrood Palace at the foot of the Royal Mile there are wooden doors with unicorns and lions and flora like the thistle for Scotland and the rose for England. There is an old 12th century Augustinian Abby ruin which had no roof from the time of Henry VIII and a hunting park legend about a threatening stag that was stopped by a cross appearing so the monks marked this space as holy.


When the Queen comes to Edinburgh there is a ceremony of keys to admit her- the Queen gets keys to the city of Edinburgh. A state visit is very busy for her- embassy personnel are invited to a garden party at Holyrood.
Queen Victoria’s Drive was built during reign of Albert and Victoria- they built Balmoral Castle too. The plants I photographed are foxglove (digitalis) growing wild.The tall mountains are actually 3 extinct volcanoes in Edinburgh. Hutton wrote The Treaties of Geology which was very controversial because of the Church view of creation.

From Edinburgh it is only 45 miles to the Atlantic Ocean and there is a view of the North Sea with a 70 mile visibility. The Firth of Forth is the body of water seen from Edinburgh Castle.6000 years ago tribes were terrace farming this area.

JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame had a favorite coffee shop (Elephant House) she credits with inspiration for Harry’s birth. She lives in the area. There is also a street that provided inspiration to her as she wrote the series.

Edinburgh is called Auld Reekie due to the smoke from Victorian coal fires- gas is mandatory now.Edinburgh is a festival city and August is the main month- the population triples in August and the stands are put up at the castle for the Military Tattoo.

The Edinburgh Castle Tour We saw the Scottish Crown and Scepter and sword- the Stone of Destiny on display (The Honours of Scotland) St. Margaret’s Chapel is small and the oldest surviving building on castle hill. The Great Hall is from the 16th century and has a hammer and beam roof- inside this structure is where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James I (aka James IV). Up on the castle hill there is a one o’clock gun that fires to set the clocks and also to save money. There is a dog cemetery for soldier’s guard dogs. Mons Meg is the largest cannon up there.We toured the Prisoner of War exhibit and saw the hammocks and inscriptions from some American sailors in the 1700s and then exited the castle proper.

The girls went shopping on the Royal Mile and Amy and I went to the Edinburgh City Museum farther down the Royal Mile. There were displays on very early history of the city with pottery, silver, glass, wooden water pipes, the story of Grey Friar’s Bobbie, Haggis, food like neeps (turnips) and tatties (potatoes). We played with the seal press of Edinburgh on silver paper.
Outside the museum they were filming in period attire in the rain.
We walked the entire Royal Mile more than once today!!!

Auld Reekie Tour of Edinburgh Underground: The Ghost and Torture Tour
This is one of the most haunted places on EARTH! We started above ground with the area behind St. Giles in the parking lot which was once a cemetery and moved a few steps over to a heart-shaped square which was a place of public execution near the gaol. There is a heart called the Midlothian Heart and it is good luck to spit on it as you pass. The guide told us about the prosecution of witches and the test to reveal if you were a witch. The rain started coming down so we quickly transferred to the torture room of Auld Reekie Tours to discuss the implements of torture on display(I wouldn't want to melt!?). There was a headpiece designed for nagging wives with a tongue press attached, there was a child’s thumb screw, a male castrator tool and a chastity belt- we did not go too deeply into much of this because there were a couple of younger students age 10 on the tour. From this room we entered the underground vaults of South Bridge passing down stairs and a corridor. The area we entered was very dark, damp and musty with rain trickling down the walls from the streets above. Our guide told us the first haunting instance was a boy named Jack who was looking for his mother. A person would feel his hand in their hand down there. The Wiccan circle of stone room was viewed from the street/hall and we had to stay out of this circle or we would have bad luck. Another story concerned the Edinburgh Oven Room- the fire of Edinburgh raged above this area and women and children were down here and cooked to death because they could not escape. There is a poltergeist in this room due to the large number of deaths. The most haunted place is the back left corner of the room and has the most recorded activity- Look on YouTube under “Haunted Edinburgh Vaults” for the 4 part series (p.s. One girl and her mother left the tour on the first hall- too scary). After the tour we walked back to the hotel in the dark of night with our imagination working overtime.