No matter how you arrive in Edinburgh, whether it be emerging from Waverley station or entering from one of the many roads that come to this glorious city, it is still an amazing experience to get here and see the castle perched on its craggy mount.
We’ve gotten pretty good at negotiating the city by driving down Queen St. or George Street with their storefronts shining in the sun. I have finally positioned St. James Square shopping center in my mind in the correct place. Evidently this shopping center used to be green space surrounded by 18th century tenements.
Scotland produces more university students per capita than any other nation in Europe. This is especially evident in our section of town where I think most of our neighbors are students. There’s just a different feel to this city that is so full of history. It’s fun to go into one of the pubs to eat and find the newspapers for customers to read on the gripper rods. Probably been done that way for hundreds of years.
We went exploring the neighborhood this morning and found that we truly are right next to the Queen’s house. Holyrood Abbey is just over the stone wall behind us. They have fenced off some of Holyrood Park, in preparation for The Gathering or The Fringe Festival or one of the numerous other festivals held here in July & August.
An interesting phenomenon: Whether because of the change from driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the car with a manual on the left OR just because he is going crazy, Ray has taken to getting his left & right mixed up. Invariably, when he asks me if he should turn right at the next road, I will say yes, and he will turn LEFT! He honestly is having a problem with it. And now I think it is contagious for I made the same mistake this morning. What is this? Foreigners Disease? Extreme exhaustion? Senility? I don’t know, but we better find a cure soon or we may never find our way anywhere.
Another difficulty we’ve found is using the washer/dryers over here. They are SO complicated. At home we choose our settings on the washer—gentle, regular—and press a button. Then when washed, we take them out of the washer and throw them in the separate dryer and choose high or low heat and how long to dry and press another button. Now I think the idea of doing it all at once so that you can throw in dirty clothes and come back hours later and they are sitting there dry is a great one. But there are 13 different wash cycles, a rinse cycle, spin cycle, drain cycle, and just as many choices for how you want the clothes dried. I’m sure that if this is the only machine you have ever used, it is so simple. But to Ray and me—we sit and stare, baffled at the user’s manual and get it wrong every time and have to start over. Only once you make your choice, you are stuck with it until it finishes. So washing and drying are taking quite a bit of our time.
We walked into town using the Calton Road and came back using Regents Road, so we did a bit of walking today. On our way back from dinner at Saigon Saigon, we came across the Old Calton Burial Ground and went inside to find David Hume’s tomb. This classical monument was built in 1777. Nearby was the Emancipation Monument from 1893, which showed a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln with a grateful freed slave. It honors the Scottish/American soldiers who fought in the Civil War.
This cemetery is in sad shape. All the tombstones are very sooty and many of them have been turned over and broken into pieces. I had heard that this is a rough area to be in after dark, so maybe this situation is the result of vandalism. So very sad.
It is said that witches of old would dance nightly upon Calton Hill, with a fairy boy from Leith as their drummer. Modern witches and pagans still do, once a year on Beltane. Robert Louis Stevenson said that Calton Hill was the place to get the best views of Edinburgh, and I believe he was right.
The Governor’s House is sitting here looking like a miniature castle. Some refer to it as a toy castle on account of its fake battlements, but I think it is very pretty. It is the only part left of the Old Calton Jail, at the time the largest prison in Scotland. The Old Jail was built when it was decided that the Old Tolbooth was obstructing the Royal Mile. After the last public hanging, it was decided that in the future, hangings would happen behind closed doors with a black flag raised outside once the death had taken place.
We also walked along the Royal Mile and saw the Old Tolbooth and the White Horse Close. This was the site of the Royal Mews in the 16th century. It was named in honor of Queen Mary’s white palfrey horse. Here is the 300-year-old White Horse Inn, an old coaching house with stables for over 100 horses. All coaches to London left from here. During 1745 the inn acted as headquarters for Jacobite officers while Bonie Prince Charlie resided at Holyrood Palace.
We also saw Queen Mary’s Bath House, a two storey little building where the Royal Family might relax while strolling the garden. No one knows how it came to be associated with Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1567).
***pictures from top: Queen Mary’s Bath House; White Horse Inn; the Old Tolbooth; Old Calton Jail; Canongate Kirkyard from Calton Hill with Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags in background.
1) Holyrood Abbey seen from our stone wall
