Edinburgh

This past Wednesday, Maria and I visited Edinburgh, just a 90 minute train ride North from home. Maria was getting a Schengen visa for visiting Europe and I figured it would be a fun time to preview some of the cool sites since Dan definitely wants to visit Scotland as well. The train station drops you off right below the old town of Edinburgh, so there are great views uphill to Edinburgh Castle (above). The castle is built at the top of an ancient volcano. The Royal Mile (main street from castle to Queen's residence) is built on an old lava flow. The street plan is simple, one main road with lots of teeny little roads perpendicular and heading straight downhill. So step number one was to figure out how to climb the hill.

So Maria and I picked a good looking "Close," one of those perpendicular alleys, and started heading up the stairs. We started by walking up to the castle, where they appeared to be setting up stadium seating, perhaps for a military tattoo (marching band sort of) performance. Part of the big Edinburgh festival in August is a get together of military tattoos (also part drama and part everything else under the sun, tripling population of this decent-size town). Then we strolled down the Royal Mile, admiring the myriad shops with tartans of varying authenticity. We were tempted by the many woolen scarves and other plaid handicrafts, but resisted since we had a full day ahead and the day promised to be a bit too nice to wear much of these items (can you believe it, warm!).

We got about half-way down before stopping for an authentic Scottish lunch (Pizza Hut lunchtime buffet because the full Scottish breakfast with haggis just couldn't be stomached) and then heading to the Consulate for the Netherlands in the New Town. The New Town was constructed as the Scottish vision of the suburbs with wide boulevards, straight streets in a nice grid, etc. It was pretty nice and where the REALLY expensive shopping could be found. The consulate was a little freestanding stone house in the New Town, which is probably fairly equivalent to the kind of neighborhoods in Washington where embassies are found.

After the consulate, we still had a few hours before heading home, so we resolved to finish the Royal Mile, which terminates at the bottom of the hill at Holyrood Palace, the place where the Queen sometimes summers in July or so. We were about half-way there when we saw an intriguing Close and went exploring. We soon found ourselves climbing a nearby hill to enter Calton Park. This park has great views of Edinburgh, so we probably had a better view of Holyrood from up there than we would have on the ground. We also had fun views of some of the volcanic rock formations, which reminded me of geology friend, Laura.

We were warm enough from the climb to take off our jackets. While exploring the park, we got to investigate preparations for the Beltane Festival that night. I believe, that's a druid/wiccan kind of celebration and it was being billed as a "fire festival." I seem to recall it having another meaning in Arthurian legend, but maybe I'm mixing up my pagan festivals. We descended the hill back into the new town and managed to catch the National Portrait Gallery right before it closed. We only saw one gallery, but the one work caught our eye -- "Three Oncologists." I think the artist captured pretty well some of the dread you feel when you hear you've got cancer. Luckily, Mom doesn't have to look at her doctors with dread because she's doing pretty well at this point.

We had a bit of dinner in a food court (ok, we're wusses when it comes to authentic Scottish food, but we did at least skip the opportunity to eat at McDonald's). Then it was back on the train home. I wish I could capture some of the fun sights we passed. It's just too tough to snap the fields of multicolored sheep with little lambs jumping around in them. The fields of yellow flowers all turn into big blurs. Even the crashing waves below green cultivated fields with only an aging stone wall between the plow and a 50-foot drop don't quite come across. I did capture this quick video of an authentic British trailer park, though. Something about a trailer park in Britain seems intrinsically odd to me, but the property prices here are higher than anything was in Washington during the boom, so this kind of dwelling should hardly be surprising. Plus, this park at least has a spectacular view as the homes are situated at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea.

I'm looking forward to going back to Edinburgh as we barely scratched the surface of what there is to see there. I know Maria was excited about the hiking available on the Holyrood park grounds and I'm looking forward to going into the castle. We'll see when train prices drop again...