Edinburgh

Hello my faithful readers!

Well I know it has been a while but I have been out of town before, during, and after Christmas. Our first trip was to Edinburgh, Scotland. We took the train to make sure I got to see plenty of English countryside. I still cannot get over the beauty of it, even in winter. This time we went up through the Lakes District, the largest national park in England, and that in itself was amazing. It reminded me very much of Montana at this time of year, staggering mountains, valleys of grass, craggy cliffs. It definitely looked very much like it did in A and E's Pride and Prejudice, if you have seen that.

Once we got to Edinburgh it was already night. It is completely dark by 4pm everyday in England, and I am positive it was more like 3:45 in Scotland. I have learned to be nocturnal, as John puts it. Anywho, we went and walked around the German Christmas Market. The stalls and crafts were amazing. I also had a German pork steak roll and a hot dog. It was fun and we were starving from the train trip. We also went on the carousel and ferris wheel, but John refused to let me go on the Helter Skelter slide. Hmmm, there is one down here in Hyde Park! ;-) Then we went and had a beer at a pub called the Theater Royal. The beer was called Edinburgh Gold, and let me tell you, it was dangerously too easy to drink. I only had a couple but then I changed to something else because I knew it could spell trouble.

The next day we walked around Edinburgh, which was built on a hill by the way, lots of walking up hill, and made it up to the old city. The old city is built around a plateau, upon which sits Edinburgh castle. It is built into the cliffs of the plateau, and as we discovered later, the cracks of the plateau were used as dungeons. It was the most imposing castle I have seen so far. I know, I know, the Tower and all, but it isn't built into a mountain people! I thought I was looking at Dracula's lair instead of where Mary, Queen of Scots lived! After another long walk up the side of the plateau we made it to the castle. It was very impressive and had a tiny chapel about 1000 years old on top. While we were walking around the fog was rolling in, making the whole thing atmospheric. We also got to witness the 1 o'clock gun. The soldiers of the castle fire off a cannon at 1 o'clock everyday. John got a video clip of it, I will see if he can upload it to my blog.

For me the highlight of the castle was not seeing the paintings of Scottish kings and queens. Nor was it seeing the room that King James I of England was born in. For me, it was to see the Stone of Destiny. There are many rumours about this stone, that it came from Israel and was Jacob's pillow when he had his ladder dream. Part of it was supposedly given away to the Irish and used as the Blarney Stone, which I have already seen. The most important tradition with the stone was its importance in coronations. Scottish kings sat on it when they were crowned. When Edward I invaded Scotland, in 1296, he took the stone down to England and had a coronation chair built that would fit the stone underneath it. This is the same coronation chair that all monarchs have sat in since then, and the stone was only returned in 1996. It must return to England though, when Charles becomes king, but only for the coronation itself.

After that we walked down to a tour called Mary Kings Close. Basically, remember what I said about Edinburgh being built on a hill, well houses were built going up this hill until they reached the top. These rows of houses were all of six feet across from each other and the small streets that they formed were called closes. In the 1700's, in order to build a much larger building at the top of the hill, the town builders sheared off the tops of the houses, reinforced them, and used them as the foundation of the Royal Exchange building. The houses were left, covered over, underneath for hundreds of years. Now they actually take you down into these streets and tell you about the plague, the people that lived there, and of course, the ghost stories. It was very interesting to walk through these old houses and to hear about the sanitation, into the streets people, of the period. Here is a webpage with some pictures . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_King's_Close

After that we went and had dinner. I was determined to try haggis and so was John. It was overpoweringly spicy and filling but it was very tasty. It wasn't sausage looking or, well, stomach looking in anyway, I think they just served us the filling and not the casing. After dinner we were going to go on a literary tour but the cold was getting to both of us. It was freezing at night and near freezing during the day, with or without the fog. I was trying to make the best of it but I could tell that the cold was getting to John. We finally went and saw a movie in the evening instead of going on the tour.

The next morning I woke up with a cold. I am pretty positive I got it from riding on the ferris wheel in the fog and cold. I coughed and coughed, had a fever for about three days, and am still coughing a week and a half later. I haven't had a cold like this in years! Fortunately we were able to get earlier tickets home on the train and go down the Eastern coast of Scotland and England. I got to see Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost English city. I also saw the North Sea and the Yorkshire moors mentioned in the book The Secret Garden. It was definitely a trip of a lifetime, a few more dreams coming true to check off my list.

Next . . . Christmas in England!