My English Summer: Day 05

My last day in Edinburgh, and I'd saved the Castle visit for this one. If nothing else, one should visit Edinburgh Castle for its views. The hill (Castle Hill) was formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity. The castle was built in - if I've got my facts right - the 12th century and went through lots of changes, tearing down, rebuilding, renovation  and all that sort of thing. It really is quite impressive, and it's interesting how whenever you look up from somewhere in the Old Town you can see it brooding high above you on that sheer cliffside.
Entry isn't cheap - tickets cost GBP 14 but if you're going you might as well go for the audio guide, so you'd pay GBP 17. The audio guide is really good, and gives you the option of listening to as much or as little of the history as you want to. I spent a long time going through each and every story and narration, a morning well spent. There are also guided tours by castle staff at fixed times if one is interested. But really, why would you want to traipse around in a huge group being shepherded by a guide when you can do it all on your own and at your own pace, pausing when and where you want to listen to more background and take some pictures?
Margaret's Chapel was stark in its simplicity; the Great Hall felt familiar - been watching too many movies of that time maybe? The war memorial was quite moving. Overall, worth the visit and gave me a much better idea of the history of the country.

Above: 1. View from the Castle. 2. The 1 o'clock gun which is fired at 1pm daily - used earlier to synchronise times with the observatory or harbour or something to that effect. Used to be fired at noon till a canny Scotsman realised that they could save ammo by firing it at one pm!!
Below: Castle as seen from Princes Street Gardens

After the Castle visit I took a bus ride out of town to the Ocean Terminal. Instead of finding a seaside promenade I found out that this was just a big mall, next to which lies the Royal Yacht Britannia. Not my cup of tea so I took another bus back, this one had a pretty nice route and went for a bit past the shore/harbour.
This evening Amanda, Melissa and I met up and went looking for somewhere nice to eat. Finally settled on a pubby kind of place called The Last Drop, in the Grassmarket area. Tried out Irn Bru, veggie haggis and sticky toffee pudding. Nice.

My English Summer: Day 04

Edinburgh rocks. Really there is so much beauty and history in this city, you can spend days getting to know your favourite parts of it. I only had three days though, so had to make the most of these.
Signed on for the free walking tour that leaves at 11am every day from the Starbucks on the Mile. It lasted for about 3 hours and the guide - Mark, a great story teller - picked up a lot of the history and legends connected to Edinburgh. Saw a number of interesting places: passed by the Writers Museum dedicated to Scott, Burns and Stevenson, St Giles church, the Mercat Cross (gory history - thieves used to get nailed to the cross by their ears we were told - ouch), the Elephant Cafe where Rowling wrote the initial Potter books, the Heriot School which is said to have been one of the inspirations behind Hogwarts - a lot of the names of her characters (such as McGonagall) can be found on the plaques around the school, Greyfriar's church and the famous dog Bobby (well we saw the dog's statue anyway), the house of Deacon Brodie (who inspired Stevenson's Jekyll/Hide character), the Princess Street gardens, etc etc. All in all a good way to get an initial idea of the city and its stories.
Did some more walking this time and found that the lower part of the Mile especially Canongate is a nicer area than the upper half, less crowded and touristy. You just have to veer off into any of the narrow lanes leading off the main road and you find yourself in beautiful little residential areas with gardens and flower-boxes in the windows and that kind of thing. As I was really walking quite randomly, didn't know for sure where I was till I found myself at the old Calton cemetery. Spooky and quiet.
At night - well it was night timewise since it was 8.30pm but really it was bright day outside - Amanda, Melissa and I headed out for a drink, before joining this so called Ghost tour. More stories and a guide who loved drama! The walk took us up past the cemetery to Calton Hill. You get some lovely views here of all sides of the town, apart from the Observatory. There is also this Parthenon-style incomplete pillared folly which is formally called the National Monument I think...abandoned after a point.

The tour was going on to a college-crowd pub after this, we figured we'd rather walk back as it was nearly 11pm and nobody was in the mood for that kind of thing particularly. Long day, but what a day!