Today was my day to see the sites in Edinburgh. I got on the train and walked up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle. It was awesome, but super overpriced! I had a moment of stupidity and decided that it would be a good idea to get the audio guide and souvenir guide so it cost me around 20 pounds for 2 hours on the castle. So interesting factoid: Scotland is full of dead volcanoes, and the castle is built directly on top of a plugged up vent. (That's for you, Steph). It is a really strategic site because it is much higher up than the rest of the city and you really have to hike to get up there. I imagine it was a wee bit trickier still when the road wasn't paved. The biggest highlights at the castle was seeing St. Margret's Chapel, and the Honours of Scotland. St. Margret's is really just a small stone cube, but it also happens to be the oldest structure in Edinburgh. It is the tiny room lime washed white inside with a small altar and little stained glass windows. It was quite a contrast from Yorkminster a few days before!
The Honours of Scotland, also the Crown Jewels were also amazing to see! It's set up to be near the last of what you see and they really do save the best for last! Other than the cheesy and slightly bad exhibit running up to it, you kind of start and stop as you go because it is so full of people all being streamed through these various rooms in the palace proper. Finally you get to this antechamber and you can read up about the history of the Honours. Sir Walter Scott actually was the one that found them. Turns out people kind of forgot about them for almost a century. They also have bronze casts of the sword and crown and wand so you can “Touch” them. I think it was more with the intention for people with visual impairments, but it was cool to be able to touch something like it anyways. Finally you get into the chamber and there's the stone of destiny, the wand a sword and some diamond encrusted jewelry. All very exciting. People kept on being yelled at for trying to take photos, their indignation over it is certainly was entertaining.
After checking out the rest of the castle which includes a war memorial, the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James, and a number of small museums, I headed over to meet my second cousin twice removed. Morven and her boyfriend Ben met me for lunch. Which consisted for me, of a tasteless quiche, a half rotten salad, coleslaw (which was the best part) and inexplicably, this HUGE pile of shredded cheddar cheese. So gross. But that's what you get for eating on the Royal Mile. Tourist food Blech.
Morven had a lecture so Ben and I went to have a tour of the vaults. Well, a tour of the vaults, after getting ourselves a beer! This was my favourite part of my time in Edinburgh. They built a bridge out of the old, gated city into the area around it. This was going to be the newer, more fashionable place for merchants and the like. Instead of having to walk up and down the valley, they built bridges to cross the gap. The bridges had arches to keep it up, of course, but in true Edinburgh tradition, they built buildings so close to the bridge so that it is actually completely encased. Merchants planned to have stores there and make it a new, fashionable shopping district. That fell through because they forgot that maybe people would open up shops in the newer parts of the city. So, the vaults because pretty sketchtastic, and when piles of people started squatting there they decided to close them and fill them up with rubble. Lots of illegal distilleries and wine sellers, cobblers, and even taverns were down there. Ben got pretty creeped out which was kind of funny to me. I quite liked it!
We picked up Morven from her student flat and went to check out a vintage store that Morven just loves. It was pretty epic, really nice vintage clothes and real kilts and beautiful hats. It was neat to look through, but I'm glad I manage to not buy anything. Space is so limited after all! We got lost then, and it took us a while to figure out where we were. Finally, we headed off to Hollyrood palace and the conversational piece known as Scottish Parliament. Morven really hates the building, as do most Scotts it would seem and at first I just kind of stared, baffled by it. We went inside and note to all future travellers, Scottish Parliament sells their own wine and whisky in their gift shop. We then went into the Chamber and it's pretty neat. I liked that instead of having a traditional British Parliament set-up with the Government and the opposition on opposite sides, it was more like the UN with a semi-circle of desks for the Mps.
After, we headed to Holyrood Palace. It was 9.30 quid to get in and I went in alone. Because of what a dismal cheesy failure the audio guide was in the castle, I decided against taking the guide which was already included into the price. So my tour of Holyrood Palace consisted of looking at rooms with people not speaking to each other listening to their audio guides and wondering why every room has so many horrible tapestries everywhere? The best part was the gardens and the ruins of an old abbey actually attached to the Palace. I saw lots of abbeys in the UK. The gardens were beautiful. And the walk full of rose bushes was just bursting with blossoms, but of course the plebs weren't allowed to walk down that lane!
I met up with Ben and Morven and we headed off to find me some Crabbie's which is alcoholic giner beer. It was very tastey and so I tipsily made my way back to North Queensferry.
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