Annabel and Dave's Awesome Adventures: Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

We spent a weekend up in Edinburgh, also during winter, like I say I have a lot of catching up to do! It was kind of due to this trip that we tasted all our whiskys, we had to know at least something before we headed to it's heartland! It's a great city, like a Scottish Disneyland, but incredibly cold. We went on a night walking tour and I think I almost lost my toes. It's also the first place where I've seen the pavements being gritted. At first I couldn't work out why there was this dirt everywhere, but once I started losing feeling in my feet I realised why you might lay dirt down.

The first place we visited was Edinburgh Castle, it really dominates the city and I would be impressed if you manage to visit Edinburgh without seeing the castle. We are turning into hardened tourists so came prepared with our pre-booked internet tickets, meaning no queue for us!

Looking out over the old city, snow on the distant hills

The cemetery for dogs in the castle grounds

Edinburgh castle is built on top of an extinct volcano and has buildings dating from the 12th century. The Scottish royalty used to live here though it's had a bit of a turbulent past, being captured by the English and Scottish in turn and being dismantled by Robert Bruce to prevent the English ruling over the Scots from it.

Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James VI of Scotland and I of England in a tiny room in the castle. At the moment Scotland is again looking for independence, and are due to have a referendum on the question in 2014. But then their crowns were unified under this James VI/I so doesn't that really make them the same? I suppose the unification cause wasn't helped when James IV's son, King Charles, was executed by the English parliament.

Looking out over the new city and the Firth of Forth

We went on a guided tour of the grounds whilst we were there, I would recommend that. You don't go into any of the buildings, but the guide gives you a bit of an idea as to how everything fits in, and a very brief overview of the history. The royalty of England and Scotland is so intertwined and there only seem to be about 5 names between them all, it makes it very confusing to work out who is who. For a little while I thought Mary Queen of Scots was the same as Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I's half sister, they were all living at almost the same time. I bought a book just listing the kings and queens of these two countries, just so I could try and sort them all out. I imagine this is something that kids at school here have to memorise, or perhaps they used to, I think history teaching has moved away from rote memorisation.

Mons Meg - a massive cannon

Looking down the Royal Mile

From the castle is fired a 1pm cannon, though obviously not a real cannon anymore. It used to be used by the ships in the Firth of Forth as a time signal, though because sound travels so slowly, and the ships are a fair way away, maps were made that showed the precise time the shot would be heard in different parts of the harbour. Though the cannons there are now all for show, they used to be fired straight into the city, pretty much as they are pointed now. Though once a building got destroyed by a bad shot, they stopped that practise.

After the castle we felt the need for a bit of nature, and a break from history, so we headed down the Royal Mile to Arthur's Seat. This is a great park, in the middle of Edinburgh, the actual hill is about 250m high. It's a really popular spot, especially on such a good day like the one we had. There were an awful lot of people enjoying the view from the top. I would really recommend it if you are in Edinburgh, it's a pretty easy climb, so long as you approach from the correct direction, and it really gives you a good idea of Edinburgh's layout.

Arthur's Seat in the distance

Dave on top of Edinburgh

Beautiful day in Edinburgh

The guy in the picture below is a random, but the view over Edinburgh was so good, I had to include it. You can see the castle rising in the middle of the city, it gives you an idea as to why the Scots would destroy it, rather than have the English rule over them from on high.

Sun setting behind Arthur's Seat

This picture shows you the wrong way to descend from Arthur's Seat, it looked like a path, but it was deceptive. Unfortunately once you realised it was the really wrong way to go, you were too far down this unbelievably steep, crumbly cliff. And there was no way to return, you had to just grip the grass and hope the few remaining rocks hold firm.

Don't come this way!

National Museum of Scotland

The next day was art day for us. We started with the National Museum of Scotland, which had a stunning main hall, and an awful lot of stuff. We spent quite a bit of time in the history section, which unfortunately didn't give us as good an idea of the history as we liked.

We had to do a quick whip round of their other famous exhibits at the end, including Dolly the Sheep. We also saw the National Portrait Gallery, which was actually a little disappointing, there seemed to be a lot of filler, and only one or two rooms where there were pictures of the real key figures in history. Our final art overdose was at the National Gallery. There were some nice paintings in here, no photos allowed. I would say it's worth a visit, if you have time. One place we didn't get to visit, which I would have liked to have seen, was the Modern Art Gallery, but that's a little further out of town. Maybe next time. I'm picturing some more trips to this part of the world, if only to see the wilderness. I've heard exciting things about the Cairngorms.