It wasn’t the smoothest trip north last Thursday. There’s not a direct train from Stoke on Trent to Edinburgh, and we bounced through Manchester and finally had to change trains completely at Carlisle near the northern border of England (a freight train was blocking the one and only track), but we finally reached our destination in a misty rain in the early afternoon. Before we had even stopped completely, you could tell we were in what was, though not officially another country, most definitely another world.
A giant castle looms high over the city on a cliff of volcanic rock. Almost every building looks as though it had stood rooted to its spot since 1473. Though it has the bustle of a modern city, Edinburgh has the charm and feel of a medieval outpost and centre of trade. It is truly breathtaking around every corner.
Now, before we go any further, let’s work on your pronunciation. It’s E-din-burr(a)h. It’s not that you want the ‘g’ to be lessened, you have to get rid of it altogether, but fill its space with that little ‘a’ in parentheses up there. And, honestly, that still doesn’t even get it. Scottish enunciation practically makes English a foreign language, especially to Suthun boys like myself.
I had taken a pair of khaki pants in the hope that I might be able to get in some golf in its ancestral home, but it became evident early on that we just had too much to do to experience Edinburgh’s treasures. We took off Friday morning and skirted past Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she is in Scotland, and took in the Discovery Centre and its multi-dimensional take on the history of the earth. It is well done, and it almost makes up for the fact that its rugby ball-shaped building is a complete eyesore amongst the gothic backdrop of the city’s skyline. We saw the Scottish Parliament building, where their representatives meet and pretend that they are an independent country from Great Britain, and we got some great views of the geological wonders that hang over the city at the end opposite the castle. The cliffs and the extinct volcano known as Arthur’s Seat come into our story shortly.
CLICK HERE FOR ALL THE EDINBURGH PICTURES
We hiked the length of the Royal Mile, which really amounts to a much more pleasing version of the main street in Gatlinburg. There are no less than 30 shops where you can buy your own kilt, or man purse to go with your kilt, or Scotch shot glass, or various other sundries to commemorate your stay in the North. We even bought some fudge…and it was good.
We got to the castle and it turned out that we weren’t going to get to see much of it before closing time, so we decided to save it for tomorrow. We still took some pictures under the rising half-moon though.
Saturday turned out to be a whirlwind. We were up and scaling the heights of Arthur’s Seat by 10. The kids did great and just kept plugging along, and it was a genuine hike. The peak you can see in the photos is the highest point for many miles around, and we stood on the very tippy top. Even the castle looked small from up there. We could see across the Firth of Forth (the arm of the North Sea that provides Edinburgh’s access to the world), and probably halfway to Glasgow on the other side. When we got down and grabbed some second-rate Mexican food on the Royal Mile, we headed back to Edinburgh Castle.
The highlights included the Crown Jewels of Scotland that were worn back in the occasional days of independence that the country experienced, and we got to see the prison rooms where prisoners of war from the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars were held. It is a castle like no other I have ever seen.
I diverted from the family plan on our way home and took a bus out to the stadium on the off chance that I might be able to scalp a single to the international rugby showdown between the Scottish national team and the visiting squad from New Zealand. I had watched a little rugby here and there on the telly, but we hadn’t really gotten a firm grasp of the rules, or of the hierarchy of national skills, though I did see that England had stayed pretty close to New Zealand the week before but finally the ‘All Blacks’ had triumphed. It turns out that New Zealand was having an off day against England, and have actually been the best rugby team in the world since, well, since pretty much as long as there has been international rugby. I was able to get a ticket close to game time, and by the time I got to my front row seat at the equivalent of the fifty yard line (25 pounds! Singles are the way to go at scalping time), Scotland had kicked a penalty shot and taken a 3-0 lead on the All Blacks. This could be exciting! And it was, but for a different reason. It was exciting because I got to see the best rugby team in the world up close. New Zealand proceeded to decimate the hapless Scotsmen. It was 28-3 midway through the first half. It was 49-3 by the end. However, there was not enough room on the bench, so many of the New Zealand players were forced to sit at the far end of the row my scalped ticket was in. I’d bet there are people who feel the same way about rugby that I do about football that would be pretty darn pumped to be as close to the New Zealand stars as I was that Saturday night.
Wow, that’s a lot of Edinburgh information. I’ll spare you any further details except to say that on the train ride home on Sunday we saw fields of snow in the Lake Country and it was beautiful. We are on our way back to London Wednesday for more memories as Sawyer and I have tickets for England vs. France in football (soccer) at Wembley Stadium. We’ll be in the upper deck if you get it on the satellite. I think we’ll be under the cover of the roof, so don’t worry about the rain. Ta!
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