Alan H and the Luminous Joan in Scotland- let the photo onslaught begin! Days 1-2

**Alan H** · 28th July 14, 11:10 PM

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.

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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!

**mookien** · 29th July 14, 02:51 PM

Alan: Wonderful pictures all! Thanks for sharing them with us. My favorites are the Arthur's Seat trail and the picture of you both at the summit. Joan looks luminous even in the shadow of the beast.

John