All photos are the property of Ken Runquist and have been reduced in size for faster
downloading. The originals are 1280 x 960. Contact me by
email if
you would like a larger size copy of any photo.
Country
United Kingdom
Hotel
Travelodge
Temperature
Sunny with a high of 22°C
Day 11: Friday, September 15, 2006
Edinburgh, Scotland
Old Town on
Foot
We spent our
second day in Edinburgh seeing Old Town on foot. The morning was
cool as we walked up the Royal Mile to Edinburgh Castle.
We
both wore sweatshirts and were glad we did. We had planned on
not buying a bunch of souvenirs of our trip – mostly because we had
no room in our luggage after packing for a two-month vacation.
However, as we were walking toward the Castle, one of the shops had
a sidewalk sale and they had a rack of blue fleece shorts with
Scotland written on them for 99 pence. This was such a bargain
that I couldn’t pass them up. I bought them and put them on
over my regular walking shorts.
Ken and his new
shorts on the
Royal Mile
We spent the morning at the Castle.
We started with a free guided tour which involved much uphill
walking to get to the very top. Edinburgh Castle is simply
magnificent. It occupies the summit of an ancient plug of
volcanic rock towering 260ft or 80m above the city it dominates,
and is visible for tens of miles in every direction. No
fairytale castle, this is the real thing, an uncompromisingly
defensive structure that seems to grow organically out of the
living rock beneath it. Over the centuries Edinburgh Castle has
been continuously adapted to meet the military needs of the day.
Kathryn at the
gate to Edinburgh Castle
And over the
centuries its strength has been tested on no fewer than thirteen
occasions, successfully or unsuccessfully, by siege or by stealth.
Edinburgh Castle is a large and complex structure. The Royal Apartments include a tiny
room in which Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to the boy who was to
become King James VI of Scotland and James 1 of England upon the
death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. The ancient Honours of Scotland -
the Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of State - are on view in the
Crown Room. Nearby is the Scottish National War
Memorial,
a building designed and created shortly after the First World War;
we found this a moving experience.
Edinburgh Castle is also the
home of the One O'Clock Gun. This is fired every day except
Sunday at precisely 1.00pm to provide everyone with an accurate
check for their clocks and watches. It will certainly startle
you if you are anywhere near the Castle at that moment! At the
same time a ball at the top of the nearby Nelson’s monument also
drops.
The Castle
Esplanade is the venue of the world-famous Edinburgh Military
Tattoo, the annual
Turn volume up.
Hit play
occasion on which,
over a period of three weeks in August, the Army
presents a lively programme of music,
marching and historical re-enactments under floodlights before large
and appreciative audiences. The oldest
building in all Edinburgh is to be found within the Castle
precincts. It is St. Margaret's Chapel, a tiny Norman
building which has been standing there intact for more than 900
years. It has survived all the sieges and bombardments to which the
fortress on the rock was subjected during that period. On several
occasions the castle was razed - but the demolishers invariably
spared the chapel of the good St Margaret because of its religious
significance. Today, members of the castle garrison still have the
right to be married within the Chapel. To the north, between the
Castle and the Firth of Forth, we got our first glimpse of Edinburgh's New Town.
This is a
panoramic view of four individual photos, looking north and west
towards New Town from Edinburgh Castle. The Firth of
Fourth is at the top. The main street running across below
the castle is Princes Street. Click on the photo - the
large picture is clear. It is a large photo - you may have
to scroll right.
By the time we
walked back down the Royal Mile, it had warmed up considerably so we
dropped our sweatshirts at the hotel. We stopped for lunch at the
Advocate and then walked around Old Town, basically traveling on the
same streets that I had driven on the day before. Today, with
bright sunshine and a map, it was easy to see where we were going.
We spent some time in the Edinburgh Museum which gave us a history
of the city. Old Town was pretty much defined by its geography as I
mentioned in yesterday’s page. Nearly 25,000 people used to live in
this small area in the 1700s with people of all classes living
together. The buildings on the Royal Mile were inhabited by rich and
commoners alike until the development of the New Town began. The Old
Town was then left with an ever growing population of poor and knew
its worse time of decay and disease. Many of the buildings on the
Royal Mile are hundreds of years old and are Europe's original
skyscrapers. The overcrowding in the limited space of the Old Town
led to buildings being expanded upwards. That's how medieval
Edinburgh got its first 6-7 storey high buildings. With them closely
built together, it is said that people on the upper floors could
reach out and shake hands. The lower floors would be inhabited by
merchants who had their own shops, at the very top floor you would
find the poorest of Edinburgh and in between you would find the
middle class, lawyers, doctors, etc. Narrow alleyways (called
closes or wynds), often no more than a few feet wide,
lead downhill on either side of the main spine of the Royal Mile in
a herringbone pattern. We purchased,
bread, fruit, meat, etc. for dinner in our room and went to bed
early for our long drive the next day.
Left:
looking up the Close from Market Street to Cockburn Street
Right:
looking back down the same Close from Cockburn Street to Market
Street. There is also a little side Wynd off to the right
half-way down.
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
