Edinburgh, Scotland – 05/03 – 05/05

(Michelle) We parted ways with Steve and took the ferry over to Scotland. We had originally come to Edinburgh thinking we would go to Edinburgh first and then go back to Glasgow second (where cheaper flights might be found to London). We ended up staying in Edinburgh the whole time. This is my favorite city so far, as far as how it looks. The whole city center looks like it is part of the whole castle on the rock. We were fortunate to get some free housing in Edinburgh for two nights, as it turns out the people who own the hostel we stayed at in Derry are in the process of opening a new hostel in Edinburgh. They weren’t quite ready for business yet, but Steve (different from Aussie Steve) thought it would be nice to see what it was like to have people stay there to help him see what he was still missing, so he let us stay two nights for free as the first guests of this new hostel. In return, we helped Steve with feedback on various tours.
The first night, we went on an ok, but way overpriced, night ghost tour. At least we got to go to a cemetery at night, which is always fun. We then went to a bar where we heard some traditional music (not all that different from Irish really, just a big group of people sitting around with multiple violins, a couple two tree accordions, a guitar and a Irish goat skin drum)… No bagpipe, but we would hear that later.
The next day we went to Edinburgh castle. We saw the crown jewels of Scotland and read a lot of history about important people like King James VI/I, Queen Mary and even a little about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (Every man dies, but not every man truly lives). There were several other separate military museums within the castle (there was even one on the military horses, but I put my foot down on that one). The military regiment names all confused me really. Then we spent an hour at the free art gallery where we saw more priceless works of art by Monet, Renoir, Degas and most importantly… Titian, honest to god (for those unaware, an excellent SNL skit from the 70s)… Unfortunately I only got one shot off on my camera of a Titian before I got busted by the gallery police (how would I know… at the Met in NY, you were allowed to take pictures). They kept a tight leash on me after that, so I could not get a photo of a Titian where I could actually say “what’s that right there”. We took a nice walk down to Holyroodhouse (where the Queen stays when she comes to Scotland) and parliament.
On our last day in Scotland, we did the Real Mary Close Tour. When Edinburgh was first built, there were some main streets up on the rock, but mostly it was overcrowed 12 story houses built up the hill with a tiny little stairway in between each row called a “close”. Back in the 16 and 1700s, when overcrowing and sewage was a real problem, twice a day at set times, people would yell “gardylou” and throw all their human waste out the window onto the close. This would roll down the stairs, finally entering the lake where most of the drinking water came from. Nice. Many of the old closes were built over in the 1800s and this particular tour takes you into built over close, now a tunnel, into a recreation of what some of these old houses/closes looked like. Not a tour for the claustrophobic. We then went to the free museum of Scotland, which we unfortunately did not set enough time aside for, as it was MUCH bigger than it looked and had a ton of information in it (starting from dinosaur age Scotland forward). We then left for our 9:30pm overnight bus to London.

(TJ) Check out the Museum of Scotland it has great Roman Artifacts and a huge number of other cool exhibits. Edibinburough castle also very cool looking, I could have spent a lot more time there at the Scottish Military Museums or the Scottish Regimental Museums that are onsite. Most of the city looks to be at least 200 years old if not older, I’d put the charter of this city right on par with Prague. It looks like something that has come out of a fairy tale. I’d definitely go back, hopefully with a lot more money since it is very expensive