Day 52 - [E]dinburgh
Visiting Edinburgh proper
I slept much better last night. The level of anxiety I had been harbouring around the arrangements for playing golf yesterday were much higher than I imagined at the time, it seems. Anyway, I woke up much more refreshed (though still only in holiday-relative terms – I really cannot wait to get back into my own bed). I had all day to investigate Edinburgh today, and plans to conquer the castle, Holyrood Palace, one or two museums, and perhaps the Botanic Gardens on the way home. And it was already a lovely (though cold) day outside. I tried to acquire tickets to visit the castle and discovered they were sold out, all day! I had not seen that coming. I was so surprised by that I decided to visit the castle anyway later in the day and see if tickets became available. I would persist with the flukey internet connection at the castle if I could get tickets.
A bit crestfallen that the one big tourist attraction in Edinburgh that I wanted to visit might slip away from me, I headed off to do the rest of my plan. I started with breakfast in a little cafe I’d passed a few times in the bus on Inverleith Row (the street I’m staying on). It was called Krem Karamel and looked quite quaint from the outside. I arrived there at 8:50am and they don’t open until 9:00am. (Europeans and the Scots are not morning people, it seems. Nowhere that I’ve found on this trip opens before, say, 7:00am, which cafes in Australia do routinely to get the breakfast/before work trade.) I could see the proprietor sitting behind his counter, evidently reading his phone. It was so cold out, in spite of the morning sun (still very low), that I tried the door, which was open, and went in to ask if I could sit in his warm cafe until he was ready to open for trade. He agreed.
At 9:01am, he said, “Good morning. What can I get you?” The menu was very like cafe menus that I was familiar with so I ordered the Eggs Benedict (my standard test of a new cafe) and a cappuccino. “Do you want chocolate sprinkled on the cappuccino?”, he asked. “There shouldn’t be any other way of serving it, in my view, though I know that that is not a common view”, I replied. Anyway, the cappuccino was excellent, the eggs benedict was pretty good (served with a garden salad side, and bacon rather than ham), and I had the first ‘proper’ cafe breakfast of my trip. (52 days to find it. I’m dying here!)
I’d originally thought to catch one of the many buses that run along Inverleith Row into the city. The day being so nice, and very satisfied after my lovely breakfast, I decided instead to walk into town. I knew it was only about a 25 minute (mostly uphill) walk, so no further than me walking into Civic from my home in Campbell, which I routinely do in good weather. I deliberately chose an alternative path than the one that I’d walked to the AirBNB along, to see some more of the city of Edinburgh. This took me straight through the middle of Edinburgh’s New Town – a planned expansion of Edinburgh to combat significant population expansion, in the late 1700s (I found out later at the Museum of Edinburgh). This is a really nice, heavily built-up but grand, mostly residential area. I was immediately inspired for a solution to (public) housing concerns if this sort of elegant, well-made, dense housing arrangement could be created in Australian (inner) cities.
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| Street scenes in Edinburgh’s New Town | ||
I walked through New Town up to the old town and popped out in familiar territory near Picardy Place and Leith Street (a frequent termination point on buses I’ve been catching). This led me past St Mary’s Cathedral and soon to be looking down Calton Hill, the road that runs down under Calton Hill – a fortified hilltop, across a gorge from the Edinburgh Castle. I’ve photographed the Calton Hill road under the arch before but the sunlight made this photo irresistable to take again.
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I walked down Calton Hill and tried to capture the imposing edifice of Calton Hill above me in the morning light. Then I turned right up New Street (they are not imaginative town planning name-givers in Edinburgh, I’ve noticed) to walk up to the Royal Mile. The buildings along New Street are much more modern and include UK Government and private sector offices.
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| Calton Hill, from below | |
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I came out onto the Royal Mile much lower down than I’d been before. At this time of the morning (10:30am), it was surprisingly quiet. I decided to walk away from the castle towards Holyrood Palace to avoid walking all the way up there to be further disappointed with ticket unavailability before walking all the way back down to visit the Palace. I set off for Holyrood.
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As I got to the bottom of the Royal Mile, having walked down Canongate for the last section (more on that in a moment). I came across two unusual sights: the Scottish Veterans’ Residences, and the very modern Scottish Parliament building. Mostly unusual because of their juxtaposition (opposite sides of the same part of the Royal Mile), but each kind-of unusual in themselves. I couldn’t work out if the Veteran’s Residences were the buildings on the left of the wide shot, or had been demolished ages ago to create the open space behind the memorial plaque, and I was a bit concerned that the graveyard out the back might be explanatory of why there were no residences there any more. The Scottish Parliament is an amazing example of modern architecture plonked opposite Holyrood Palace at the foot of old Edinburgh; a very unusual setting, in my mind.
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I finally came to Holyrood Palace to discover, as a couple of other tourists did at the same time, that it is only open Thursday to Monday. Not at all convenient for me on a Wednesday, my last day in Edinburgh. I took the photo of the palace and the King’s Gallery as evidence of being there. I then visited the ‘Physics Garden’ adjacent to the palace, where scholars and canons (priests in the adjacent abbey) apparently experimented with native and exotic flora. I was struck by the quaint little house at the foot of the garden. It turned out to be Queen Mary’s Bath House (the famous Mary, Queen of Scots), though apparently, it was never used for bathing.
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I was pretty disappointed that it looked like I was going to miss out on visiting the two largest historical sites in Edinburgh (I felt that snagging a ticket at the Castle was probably pretty low). However, I set off up the Royal Mile again vaguely heading for the castle, but also with a visit to a museum on the way in mind. I had passed the Museum of Edinburgh as I walked down Canongate and thought it might be a worthy stop. The museum is in an old house and set out across a number of levels. The gallery rooms are all quite small, not well lit, and almost all the digital exhibits were “Temporarily out of service while we effect repairs.” However, many of the displays were quite interesting and I got a sense of the historical development of Edinburgh from the museum.
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After the Edinburgh Museum, I headed back up the Royal Mile, photographing interesting things. Eventually, I got to North Bridge (road) which offered access to the Scott Monument, which I felt I ought to visit. I headed over the bridge, which has the train station under it, and suddenly recognised where I was. I’d been here a few times heading for the train station, but not understanding where that was in relation to all of the rest of Edinburgh that I was slowly building up a picture of. I turned in front of the Balmoral Hotel and walked down to the Scott Monument. It was being crowded in by the Christmas Fair that was being established beside it, but remains an impressive gothic monument to the famous Sir Walter Scott.
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I decided that I would head back towards home and visit the Botanic Gardens as the day was really gorgeous, bright and sunny, even if actually very cold (~4C). Consequently, I had immediately created a number of reasons to return to Edinburgh as there was much that I had failed to see. I wandered around to a well-known-to-me bus stop to await the Number 8 to take me to the gardens. On the way there, I photographed another Edinburgh icon, the W hotel.
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It really was a lovely day to be wandering around botanic gardens. The gardens were clearly in their winter setting. Also, they were in the midst of setting up a substantial Christmas lights display. However, it was a beautiful, peaceful place to walk around, and I saw lots of things to photograph. Importantly, the little squirrels were an unexpected delight. I found out as I was leaving that they are used to people in the gardens because you can buy nuts to feed to them.
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| Vistas in the Botanic Gardens | ||
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| Forest settings – the really tall trees are Sequoias from California | ||
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| Squirrels! | ||
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| Setting up for Christmas | ||
I had lunch in the Terrace Cafe at the Botanic Gardens, which included a ‘neeps’ salad (in this case, parsnips and couscous, though I think it was pearl barley). I returned to the AirBNB and set about starting to write the blog posts that I had not been attending to. That took the rest of the afternoon. I asked Mhairi if she was heading to the pub that evening, intending to ask her if I could go with her. Turns out, she had arrangements with friends at a different pub, so I went up to the Herringbone again for another light meal. When I got back, I posted the blog entry, then read for a while before another early night.
| Daily facts: Location: [E]dinburgh Temp: 4 Weather: Sunny, clear, cold day |
I don’t remember much from my visit to Edinburgh (1984 /5) apart from, yes the Castle was a very dark & imposing building (I don’t recall going inside) … but I remember (very clearly) watching the squirrels in the park.
ReplyDeleteThey're just so cute! Much more interesting animals to be having running around the garden than Australian possums.
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