Around The World 2011 Day 37: Edinburgh, Scotland

It looked like I might get off the hook today.  We awoke to the sound of rain.  And after a breakfast in the flat, we headed over to the Newlyweds' hotel in the rain.  I said that I might get off the hook as far as the Waste goes.  In the rain, I imagined that the day would have twenty pictures, maybe thirty at most.

We will see about that.

Walking to the Sheraton in the rain.  The walk would be two blocks, but construction has made it four.  Tsk tsk. 

Once we finally got up to Carol and David's room, we saw their view of Usher Hall and Edinburgh Castle.  Imagine how beautiful that would look in the sunshine?

We were all hungry and chose the pub across the street called Shakespeare's.  Seemed like a good choice.

As you can see, a pub is a pub is a pub.  Yet the menu at Shakespeare's seems to be giving the woman in the bottom-right corner a migraine.

I got the chicken, ham and leek pie.

Barbie got the ham and egg, though it would more appropriately be called egg on ham.

After eating, we walked over to the corner where we could catch a hop-on hop-off bus.  We figured in the rain why not go around the city in a warm, dry bus.

On the way to the bus stop, I took a moment to get a picture of a Scottish cemetery.  Whenever I take pictures of cemeteries, I always think to myself that the caption will be, "Dead (insert nationality)."  One of the great things about Europe is the openness of cemeteries.  They are parts of neighborhoods.  In the USA, we stay as far away from our dead as we can manage.

Remember how the Grassmarket was bustling with playing children yesterday?  Not so much today.

Edinburgh's eldest pub, The White Hart Inn.  Established 1516.  Now that, my friends, is a pub with a history.  

Yesterday I mentioned The Last Drop, today I photograph it.  You cannot beat gallows humor, especially when said gallows humor relates directly to public hangings.

The bus took us along the Royal Mile, and the rain was hard and I got not one photograph good enough for you to see.  

A man photographs the Scottish Parliament Building, completed in 2004.  At first I was worried about saying this, because I do not want to offend my Scottish friends.  But then I realized they probably feel even stronger than I do that Scotland's Parliament building is among the ugliest eyesores in Europe, if not the world.    They went with a Spanish architect's design and, honestly, the Scots who chose this design showed such poor judgment that it amazes me that they were able to establish their own parliament in the first place.

Scotland established its own parliament in a process referred to as devolution, which Scotland had been considering for a century, with the help of Tony Blair's Labour Party.  There is a joke in there.  A solid Tony Blair joke.

The gates of Hollyrood Palace, the Royal Residence of the Monarchs of Scotland since the 1400's.

Interestingly, our first night in Edinburgh we had a great conversation with a gentleman who lives in London but is Scottish, who was in town to sell his mother's flat and then fly to spread her ashes in Switzerland before going on holiday in Paris.  (Amazing what you can learn about someone in one conversation.)  He works in politics, and when he mentioned that while in Edinburgh we should visit the Royal Yacht, I took the chance to ask him what the Scots think of the Royals.  My favorite Scotsman in Los Angeles, television's Craig Ferguson, makes no secret of his dislike for the Royals.  The gentleman at dinner surprised with his insight that the British Monarchs are of Scottish and German descent and not British, and that from his point of view they were relatively popular in Scotland.

I am now certain that I would hear many different answers to that question, but the fact that there is no universal answer is what I learned.  My small-minded American point of view was that most Scots would not be in favor of the British Monarchy, and I was wrong.

After completing the circuit around Edinburgh on a double-decker bus, we ducked into a Caffe Nero.  And while we sat there, sipping coffe (or, in my case, hot chocolate that was rich and thick to the point of absurdity) the sun broke through the clouds and painted what had been a gray city with color.

When we first crossed the street, and the rain was coming down, I did not take a picture of St. John's Church.  Now, I wish I could have predicted the sunshine, so that we could compare and contrast rainyness versus sunnyness together.

I take this picture inside every church, I know.  If time was unlimited, someday I would take every end-of-the-aisle church, temple and synagogue photograph and put them together in a single Waste post.  That would be, as the youngsters used to say, groovy.

Or post-coffee plan was to go up to Edinburgh Castle.  Now that the sun has decided to join us, the pictures up there will be much better.

We hopped onto the hop-on hop-off to use our still active tickets to take us three-quarters of the way up the hill.  When the bus driver started driving in circles, not heading up the hill, we learned that the hill was closed for rehearsals of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a big military music and performance ceremony that they will be holding during the festivals.  Amusingly, when we asked the driver if we would be going up the hill as the route detailed, and he said No as if we should have known, everyone on that bus hopped-off.

And we had to hoof it up something like 200 steps to the top of the hill.

After around 170 steps, when Barbie and Carol went to the room of rest, I turned and got this shot of the Southwest side of Edinburgh.

Walking towards Edinburgh Castle with the sun breaking through the clouds.  Notice Movie Star Barbie in the shades to the left.  In all seriousness, that picture is a gem.  You know how I love a lens flare.  I should be keeping a separate list of the particularly good photographs, so that I can combine them into a photography enthusiasts collection at the end of the trip.

When we got to the line for tickets to the Castle, it was 5:10.  By the time we got to the window, it was 5:20.  And the ticket seller informed us that they stopped letting people in at 5:15.  It took some persuading from Barbie, but she got us in.  The employees there claimed that we would not even see half of what there was to see before the Castle closed at 6:00, but they had no clue about two things.  One, we are fast.  Two, we really just needed to take some awesome pictures and then leave.

The Portcullis Gate, built from 1574 to 1577, with the top level added in 1887.  This is the second gate you enter, as they kept adding more and more gates as Edinburgh Castle was continually sieged, and occasionally taken.   They built this after the Long Siege, a three year attack on the castle from 1571-1573.

Travel Tip.  Take pictures of the signs on things.  Do you think I remember all the facts that get thrown on the Waste?  No way.

A cannon facing towards New Town.  (Have I mentioned that New Town signifies after 1750, and Old Town means before 1750?)  Below this cannon is a near sheer cliff face.  I think that the reason Edinburgh Castle was conquered a few times is that they pointed cannons off the cliff sides in order to look tough, instead of aiming everything that they had at the slope to the entrance.

Okay, that was pretty rude and I am not qualified to analyze military strategy, even if my lifetime Risk record is something like 97-12.

If you compare the detail in the previous shot with this one, you see the near magical nature of HDR photography.  I suspect that in a year or two every point and shoot will have a setting to shoot HDR and process it within a second, and every picture taken by every shmo on the planet will look mildly amazing and convince said shmos that they are brilliant photographers.

The Balmoral Hotel is right THERE.

The Scottish National War Memorial, dediated to the Scottish regiments who fought in the First World War, or, as it states on the Memorial, The Great War.  When this memorial was dedicated in 1927, nobody knew that Europe was about to experience a war to make The Great War merely a prequel.

St. Margaret's Chapel, the oldest site of Edinburgh Castle, dates to the 1100's.  Built by King David I and dedicated to his mother, who died here in 1093.  David I, King of the Scots, ruled from 1124 to 1153 and he reformed nearly every aspect of this country -- political, religious, organizational -- to the point that the era is called the Davidian Revolution.

The Mons Meg, a giant Medieval Siege gun presented to King James II in 1457 and used in ware against the English.  It was later used for salutes, and it is claimed that it once fired a gunstone two miles away!  (The exclamation point was on the plaque.)

We went inside to see the Crown Jewels.  Barbie is part Scottish, you know;  Ferguson and Henderson.  I believe this means that the jewels we are about to see are partially hers.

It was Disneyland-esque on the way to the crown jewels, with many a papier machet statue.  You might recall Robert The Bruce as a character from Braveheart.  He had sworn allegiance to King Edward I of England, then participated in the Scottish revolt.  I suspect the Scottish and English history books paint very different pictures of him.

Edinburgh sky.

Proof that we were there, and that the pictures were not pulled from a google search.

A last shot of the city below, with the West Princes Street Gardens and New Town.

Edinburgh Castle Tourists Candid.  August 2011.

Edinburgh Castle Tourists Candid.  August 2011.  

The Hub.

A much smaller bubble than the one I photographed in Copenhagen last year.   Can you see the bubble?

Does that help?

Since Carol and David had not visited St. Giles' Cathedral yet, we paid a visit.  Outside, this little boy showed his interest in Medieval churches.

Uninterested Tourist Boy Candid.  August 2011.

Actually, you have to see this candid in color.

I suspect this would look nifty if I kept the boy in color and made the rest black and white.  Also, that is his mother in the gray sweater who has literally expressed, "Fine.  Get hurt.  See if I care."

The Hub and the Scottish sky.

Edinburgh Castle and the Scottish sky.

Our bedroom window is THERE.

After some time to recuperate, the Newlyweds came to our flat and then we walked a block to grab dinner in our neighbourhood's most historic tavern.

Nicholson's, Established 1873.

A cozy pub and restaurant, indeed.

Sisters to the left, husbands to the right.  A photograph of people.  I remembered!

At long last...  we ordered...

Haggis!  Say what you will, it was delicious.

Proof!

David's sea bass.

Carol's salmon.

Barbie's lamb shank pie.

My rib-eye with blue cheese sauce.  (Not blue-cheesy enough for me.)

Adios, Nicholson's.

On the way home, I grabbed a picture of the neighbourhood's Chinese restaurant, Chop Chop.

This would be a convincing argument to eat Chinese food, as well as an argument to listen to Elvis, if it were not for the fact that I absolutely believe that more than 2 in 5 people on Earth are wrong most of the time.  Considering there are 6.7 billion people on Earth today, by my estimate no fewer than 2.7 billion people are wrong.

And, yes, I agree with you.  I could have easily estimated that 3 in 5 people are wrong most of the time.

A last shot from our bedroom window, of a Scotsman walking down Morrison Street.  I quite like this shot.

Until tomorrow.