I kept waking up every hour and a half until about 4 am, but finally slept solidly after that until about 9. After figuring out how to use the hob -- an arduous process involving many buttons -- I made my usual egg and cheese english muffin sandwich. An egg mcmuffin, with healthier ingredients, basically. The cheese I bought yesterday is yummy. I honestly felt a lot better, minus my aching hip from the airport run, and was out by 10:30ish.On the way out of the building there was a young woman with a music case of some sort, who asked me if I knew of a good local cafe -- it was the first of three times I was mistaken as a local student today. Really. I'm not that young.
I went up the Royal Mile, which is something I've wanted to do for over a decade. The buildings, most of which are 17th or 18th century, are beautiful. The stain of several centuries of pollution only adds to the atmosphere of history mixed with modern life. And the Mile really is bursting with life. I stopped at St. Giles Cathedral to get a ticket for tonight's ghost walk, but I didn't go in. I'll leave that for another day. Instead, I went straight up to Edinburgh Castle.
The cobbled streets are hard on the feet, but the view is worth it. As you walk up the hill, the last narrow part of the Mile opens up to a grand promenade, with the gates to the 800 year old castle on the far end. Beyond the gates, the buildings inside continue to rise up, perched on a clifftop overlooking the city. I got an audio tour guide, which was surprisingly loud enough for my deaf ears, and it was good -- I'd recommend it to anyone.
Before I turned it on, I suddenly realised it was the Queen's 90th birthday that day! I rounded a corner, and hundreds of people were listening to a band playing, of all things, the theme to Star Wars! After that, there was an official march of dignitaries and a 21 gun salute. Too bad she was in London -- but Edinburgh Castle is her Scottish home, so... still a cool experience.
I went back to the audio tour. I'll explain the parts that struck me. The Great Hall -- the ceiling is beautifully carved, inlaid oak beams, capped with stone carvings. It's breathtaking. On the other end of the scale was St. Margaret's Chapel -- a tiny building, one room partitioned into two with an altar. The chevron carving in the arch between the two sections is unique and a bit out of place to me, for some reason. It seems to modern, even though it's original. Apparently, the chapel is thought to be the oldest building still standing in Edinburgh.
The POW barracks were awesome -- well-preserved with beds, hammocks, fires, laundry, etc. It gave a real sense of how they lived, which was actually pretty well. I'd rather be a French POW than a Scottish traitor. There were also carved jewelry boxes and other artistic pursuits on display, made by POWs during their time at the barracks. They were extremely talented men, and it's amazing how finely done and gorgeous they were, considering how few tools they had to work with.
The Castle Whisky Shop was packed, and I would have liked to have spent more time in there. Alas, I was only (!) able to sample one -- a cream whisky, which was very good -- and buy a small bottle of their house (err... castle) whisky for Mike. It's only sold there, at the castle!
The place that struck me the most was the War Memorial. It's huge. It gave me chills when I walked in. I can't remember feeling like that on entering a place before. I don't know why. I've been to other war memorials before, but not like this. There were books laid out at every turn, including two for the Canadian Scottish division from the World Wars. I was nearly in tears when I left but, oddly enough, felt immediately better the moment I reached the bottom of the stairs.
On the way back -- after about 4 hours in the castle -- I found The Writers' Museum by chance. It covers the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Scott, and of course, good old Robbie Burns. I got to see the Brodie cabinet, too! Thief, yes, but a damn good carpenter. Stevenson wasn't a particularly attractive man, I discovered. I don't think I'd seen a picture of him up until today, but there were numerous photos of him through his section of the museum. It was the first place I'd been that was free, thank goodness. It was well worth the visit.
I ate fish and chips at Biblo's (not Bilbo's) on the way back for a rest. The fish had a funny taste, but not bad. I have made plans to meet Caz at 12:30 tomorrow to go to the Museum of Childhood, wander the Royal Mile, and whatever else we might find!
Okay, off to the ghost walk.
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The ghost tour was very well done! We had a good sized group of 16. Folks from Denmark, Dublin (talked to a guy named Ronin), and Singapore. The ladies from the latter were freezing, but it was quite nice out from my point of view. Two men from the group were "whipped" at the Mercat Cross Monument, and I was hanged in the old method. Meaning I died slowly, rather than having my neck quickly snapped. Apparently I was a bad victim, haha! There were more histories than ghost stories, but I'm okay with that.
The vaults were cool -- very creepy, but I didn't experience anything unfortunately. We finished the night at a tavern room inside the vaults, where we were given a dram of whisky and told a few more stories. The guide was great! Her name was Camilla and she's in her third year studying philosophy. She's originally from Manchester, so we had a good conversation beforehand, since I've been there. I'll have to give her a write-up on Mercat's Facebook page at some point!
Sounds like a really great day!
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