Today was a big day. Edinburgh has won me over as one of those cities that I must come back to, perhaps over and over again. Went to the palace, the castle, and had a full Scottish dinner/whiskey tour with new friends. I started the day at church, St. Giles again (where John Knox preached), then took a bus tour of parts of the city that I hadn’t seen yet.
From there I stopped at HolyRood, toured the Scottish palace where Queen Elizabeth still has residences when she is in town. The rooms you can tour are the historical rooms where previous Kings and Queens have held private rooms and the public rooms. This included displays of jewelry passed down from one generation to the next. Thankfully, you are allowed to take pictures throughout the palace. They are in the process of getting ready for her visit in July. She’ll be here for a full week and they’ll have a number of Garden Parties to celebrate her week in Scotland.
The old Abbey is beautiful, even though it wasn’t open for tourists at this time. They noticed earlier this year that some of the remaining structure has been crumbling, so they’ve taken steps of ensuring everyone’s safety by not allowing visitors at this time, until they decide whether it is still crumbling or safe to have visitors again.
I had lunch in the Palace Cafe.
From there I took a bus tour of New Town, which was actually the part of town that spread out from the old city in the 1800’s. So, I guess the word “new” in this case is relative only to the age of the Old Town.
I got a timed ticket yesterday to see the Castle this afternoon. The castle is really a whole city in and of itself. It’s a collection of buildings that have stood on top of a volcanic rock for hundreds of years. It was built here as a defense against any invading armies with one side protected by the giant cliff and the other side protected by open fields (now New Town) that stretched for miles. Because of those open fields, any enemy would have to make their presence known long before they got to the Castle.
I took pictures of the cliff side yesterday, but here are those pictures again.
The current castle is still in use, today as the headquarters for the Scottish military. One of the buildings where we were not allowed to take any photos looks like a church from the outside, but on the inside it is a memorial to all those, by name, who have died in battle in Scottish history. There are stations along the building for each battle that’s been fought with the name of that battle. On tables below the name of the battle are are books with the names of those who died in those battles. I had a whole host of mixed feelings regarding this building, which echoed/mirrored the complicated emotions I have about war/peace and memorials. My brain understands the continued necessity of armies and therefore, in the end, memorials. But at the same time, my heart wishes we no longer needed these things, or seemingly worshipped these things, which I guess is why the building being made in the style of a church bothered me so much.
From there I went to the Scottish Whiskey Experience where I’d purchased tickets for a whiskey tour, tasting, and a full Scottish dinner. There were only six of us. The other five were relatives and good friends of one another - two brothers, one whose wife was joining us and the other couple was a work colleague with his wife. We introduced ourselves. We were all from the US. All five of them lived in Atlanta, Georgia. Yet, when I told them that I was from Pittsburgh, I found out that they all had lived in various parts of Pittsburgh years ago with family still living in Wexford. More than that….they had just come from a trip to Spain and Portugal! We joked about where we’d all be going next! It is an amazingly SMALL WORLD.
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