Alan H and the Luminous Joan in Scotland- let the photo onslaught begin! Days 1-2
Day One and Two- Edinburgh
I'm not going to show you pictures of castles and palaces, you can go see lovely photographs of those things all over the internet. Instead, I'm going to show you a few things that I really, really enjoyed, personally In Edinburgh. So in a way this is "Alan's Edinburgh" or more accurately "Alans Royal Mile" with a jaunt into Holyrood Park. There's a LOT more to Edinburgh than the Old City, but that's where we spent all our time.
With all the fuss and bother about the Castle and King James the umpty-umpth, I think what gets forgotten a lot is that regular people, tens of thousands of them, lived in Edinburgh for hundreds of years. Many of them did amazing things. Many lived dirty lives in filth and died unknown. A city, incredibly cramped, grew up within the walls, and then spread out beyond them. What is now the lovely Princes Street Garden was a 60 foot deep loch which served as both sewer and community water supply for several hundred years. Buildings grew up and up and up, six, eight stories tall with tiny alleyways between them, and much of that warren of buildings, closes and winds still exists. I found things there, and in graveyards, that I found to be moving and wonderful.
And I found some fun things, too, that I think you will enjoy. After all, this IS X Marks the Scot!
All right, so I will show you just a couple of Big Public Monuments to get us started. Here is the Victorian Era monument to Sir Walter Scott. It's right across the street from the bus stop that we used, and one block down from Sainsbury's the big downtown grocery market.
Joan and I have never been in real European cathedrals before. I've been in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, but I've always found that to be cold and uninviting. NOT SO with Saint Giles in Edinburgh! The place was beautiful and very, very human. I LOVED it. Of all the decorations and carvings and wonderful stonework, what took my breath away the most was the ceiling of the absolutely magical "Thistle Chapel".
Here's the ceiling of the Thistle Chapel.
Well, you know what? That's enough of the Big STuff. I'm leaving the Castle and Holyrood and the Scottish Parliament Building…..and mind you, they're all wonderful, to photographers better than I. Come with me now and see what I found magical about Old Town Edinburgh.
The Following 5 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
I knew about the "Closes" and "Wynds" the alleyways that narrowly separated the old buildings that were so crowded together, so I wanted to explore some of them. In fact, I stuck my nose in everyone I could find, practically and in some I found architectural gems like this headstone, set over a still-used door.
That's hard to read, isn't it? I used PHotoshop to help you out a bit…
That stone reads: "Praised be the Lord My God My Strength & Redeemer Anno Dom 1610"
To me, Castles don't always do a lot, but in that dark, quiet alleyway, it hit me that I was standing in the middle of buildings built by people just like me, almost four hundred years ago. I found other stones, marked 1638, 1590 and 1545. Wow. Just….incredible.
We took the commercial tour of the Real Mary Kings Close and while it was silly in some ways, in other ways it was very powerful. Imagine that day in and day out, your view of the sky was from eight stories dow IMagine that every day, the cry went out, and you threw your excrement and piss and kitchen waste into the street, right in front of your door…just like 25,000 other people did in the City, including all the people who lived on the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth floors above you. Imagine that it all ran down into the loch below, at the bottom of the steep hill, into your drinking water supply. Imagine that the Town Fathers, to minimize water usage, only allowed the pumps to be turned on from midnight to three in the morning. And imagine that half your family had died in the past three months from the plague.
=======================================
Let's leave the narrow closes and the foul clangers collecting the dead bodies of plague victims and walk down to Holyrood Park for some fresh air and a hike!
Here's the view up the STEEP side, to reach Arthurs Seat. Yes, we did it!
Proof!
The Following 9 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
Refreshed by the clear air and the cry of SEAGULLS, because Edinburgh is right on the coast of the Firth of Forth, we head back to the Old Town, focusing on the bottom half of the Royal Mile.
For how many years have I read about the (*&#$#_)@ cursed KILT TAT SHOPS on the horrible Royal Mile? Och, the curse of Kiltmaking they are, selling tripe to tourists who don't know any better and destroying our vital industry, not to mention the Immortal Memory of our Ancient Forefathers Who Fought For Our Liberty, embodied in our Noble Tartans. And stuff like that.
Well, I thought you all would enjoy seeing some of those tat shops, so here you go! Look, I'm standing in front of one in PANTS!
Let's go INSIDE!!!! We might BUY something!
Mind you, these shops are half the size and a quarter of the obnoxiousness quotient of the several really BIG ones up at the upper end of the Royal Mile. It hadn't occurred to me to photograph them yesterday. You'll just have to settle for these, located "downhill" from South and North Bridge Street. Nonetheless, they are true specimens of the species.
Mind you, these shops are half the size and a quarter of the obnoxiousness quotient of the several really BIG ones up at the upper end of the Royal Mile. It hadn't occurred to me to photograph them yesterday. You'll just have to settle for these, located "downhill" from South and North Bridge Street. Nonetheless, they are true specimens of the species.
Last edited by Alan H; 28th July 14 at 11:25 PM.
The Following 5 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
But WAIT...What's this? No, it cannae be! Shops which are NOT TAT?
As well as Geoffrey Tailor!
And then to my utter surprise, we came across THIS.
Which sadly sits directly next door to one of the tat shops I just showed you, and almost directly across the street from another. Inside the Nicholson Kiltmaking shop...the Real Thing, I was introduced to THIS gorgeous specimen.
and I have video to tell you about exactly what THAT tartan is, and why it will be the tartan for my next kilt! COMING SOON!
The Following 6 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
For Now, let us return to the Old City and bore our long-suffering Wife to tears burbling on about our next kilt. Let's step back in time to meet four Great Men of Edinburgh, all represented in the graveyard of The Canongate Kirk. Who are these men?
Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns and …have you ever heard of him? Well, you will, now. Robert Fergusson.
Adam Smith was an incredibly influential Economist, truly the founder of the modern field of Economics, and his greatest work was called "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations"... published in 1776. Prior to that he wrote another classic… "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", about the nature of human relations. Adam Smith was one of the mid 1700's true intellectual giants, crucial in what became known later as the Scottish Enlightenment. Adam Smith was born in Kirkaldy but lived much of his life in Edinburgh, though he also taught in Glasgow. Adam Smith had the insight to realize that the wealth of a Nation did not lie in it's reserves of gold and silver, or in the nobility of the upper classes, but rather in the industry and capital of those who worked for a living. He held that self-interest, working for the improvement of ones own condition was the simplest and most vital force in the Nation. That was absolutely revolutionary in it's time, a time dominated by "mercantile" thinking, which measured wealth in terms of gold and silver and quantities of goods. While this new sentiment was growing in Europe, and while its precursor was vital to forming the thought that created the American Revolution, it was Adam Smith who articulated it, and it was Adam Smith who put words to the Industrial Revolution that was coming.
And my friends…here is the entranceway to the close that holds his house in Edinburgh.
There's a little park back there, with trees and benches where other crowded buildings used to be, nice to sit on with a cold drink on a hot, humid Scottish summer day. And here is Yours Truly, standing in front of Adam Smiths House.
Last edited by Alan H; 28th July 14 at 11:59 PM.
The Following 5 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
I promised a look into the lives of Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson, didn't I? Well, let's get started.
Here's a memorial sculpture to Robert Fergusson, native of Edinburgh.
And here, my friends is why he is important.... Because during Robert Fergussons short life...he fell down some stairs in his boarding house when he was 23 and was shortly thereafter consigned to the Edinburgh mental sanitarium.... he wrote some wonderful poetry in the Scots dialect.
Now mirk December’s dowie face
Glowrs owr the rigs wi sour grimace,
While, thro’ his minimum of space,
The bleer-ey’d sun,
Wi blinkin light and stealing pace,
His race doth run.
From naked groves nae birdie sings,
To shepherd’s pipe nae hillock rings,
The breeze nae od’rous flavour brings
From Borean cave,
And dwyning nature droops her wings,
Wi visage grave.
That's just the first two stanza's there's more. Robert Burns said that Fergusson was a HUGE influence on him, and when he discovered that Fergusson had died stone broke and was buried in a paupers grave in Canongate Kirkyard, he paid for a real headstone. After a long time went by, that headstone showed some wear and tear.... and Robert Louis Stevenson paid to have it renovated, calling his expense "a gift from one Edinburgh lad to another."
And here is that headstone.
Read the inscription, you can see it in the picture. Can you guess what I'll be speaking about at the next Burns Night?
The Following 3 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
Well, that's all a bit...well. Historical and kind of grim, eh?
LETS GO LOOK AT SOME KILTS!!!!
And so, off we go to find THIS fine shop! No tat here!
What's amazing to me is that the Celtic Craft Center is located at the bottom.....or what is the bottom TODAY and may be the third story up from what was the bottom in 1570, of one of the old closes in Edinburgh. When you walk in there to look at tartan, you are walking into a room probably built around 1650. Seriously.
Welcome!
I'm not going to take you inside, nope! To do that, you'll just have to go there, yourself!
All right, enough of that....COMING SOON...video of a visit inside the Nicholson Kiltmakers shop!
The Following 3 Users say 'Aye' to Alan H For This Useful Post:
You've done some remarkable exploring. On previous visits to Edinburgh, I discovered Adam Smith's grave, but did not know about the house. Definitely on my "places to visit" for next time.
Bookmarks