jamesq | Scottish Adventurrres 15

The Royal Mile, as explained to me by Mary King's 400 year old daughter (or an actress/tour guide playing her) is like the bones of a fish. It makes up the spine of the fish, marking the high ridge of a long hill who's top is Edinburgh Castle. The side streets (closes, lanes and wynds) make up the ribs of the fish, running down the short sides of the hill. This means lots of hill climbing - more so then Cowtown is likely to produce unless you're on a scavenger hunt in Edworthy park.

zapgun4hire met me first thing in the morning. He interrupted the best night of sleep I've had in a long long time. We'll see if I can duplicate it tonight (the sleeping, not the interrupting).

For those of you interested, the Travelodge is half a block off the Royal Mile and damn reasonable (£70/night) in its rates. Also quiet and comfy.

After breakfast we started to wander, finding our way to the Royal Scottish Museum. Being free we checked it out, it included the Millennium Clock, which didn't work. Looked cool though, being loaded with gothy, death-obsessed muppets. Really.

I had to check out from my hotel, so Brain and I went back there and I packed up my stuff, leaving it at the front desk because I didn't want to be carting that around all afternoon.

Next stop was the million and a half tourist shops between the Travelodge and Edinburgh Castle. I bought a new kilt along the way. This one was a MacDonald tartan, because the Black Watch just wasn't acceptable anymore.

Edinburgh castle is big, and littered with history. I came away from it remembering one truly cool tidbit of information.

It seems that during WWII it was felt that the island was in real danger of being invaded. That being the case they decided to hide the crown jewels. They did this under one of the medieval privies in the oldest part of the castle. Four people were entrusted with the directions to the crown jewels.

The King.
The Prime Minister
Not sure his title, but the guy in charge of keeping the jewels in the first place.
The Governor-General of Canada.

Why our GG? In case the other three were captured or killed, they wanted at least one person who was safe in North America. As a Canuck I find this super cool!

After Edinburgh Castle we went to Camera Obscura. A building next door to the castle that is, in effect, a giant pin-hole camera. The top of the tower is the aperture and there was a bowl for seeing the image on. Mirrors were put above the hole so that one could aim the image. As the guide told us, the residents of a nearby building are well aware of this, so they keep their blinds drawn shut! It was pretty nifty.

The rest of the building was an exhibit of weird photographic effects, holograms and optical illusions. Kind of expensive, but I think it was ultimately worth it.

After supper we went on the "real Mary's King Close Tour" which I thought was a ghost tour, but was actually a historical tour of what happened to the closes (side alleys) of the Royal Mile. What they did was shaved off the tops of the buildings to make the street above level, then built on top of them. This meant that Edinburgh has an under-city that people have dug access-ways into. Cool, but I was hoping for blood and guts. I did have one spare night (what would be my last night in the Scotland) that I could burn if I really wanted to, so that I could take one of the other tours.

stephtopia recommended it highly so I really really wanted to do one.

Short version: Edinburgh was booked solid for hotel rooms, so it was not to be.

Brain and I hopped onto the last train for Dundee and retired from Edinburgh.