Edinburgh - March 2000

Table of Contents

5 March 2000

Well, we arrived in Edinburgh around 7:45. It was a 20 minute walk from the station to our hotel, the Ailsa Craig. It's possibly the nicest hotel we've stayed at, and it's costing us about half of what we've paid for other places. The hotel is run by a husband and wife, whose names (of course) I've forgotten.

We checked in (a French rugby team was eating loudly in the front room), then walked back towards the station, stopping at an Italian restaurant called Guiliano's, by the Playhouse. We were starving (somehow we'd skipped lunch), and so ripped through two starters, two entrees, and a bottle of wine. We slowed down for dessert and coffee.

6 March 2000

[Written 7 Mar 00]

Yesterday morning we intended to get to the castle when it opened at 9:30, but we had to take a large detour to drop off laundry (and were up late anyway), so we didn't get to the castle until almost 11.

Our first look at Edinburgh Castle.

Edinburgh castle sits astride a volcanic core stripped bare by glaciers, except for the long slope down through town (the Royal Mile). It's a rambling, lazy fortress with all sorts of nooks and crannies, and although the guidebooks use the phrases "sturdy" and "impregnable", it's no surprise that sieges were usually successful.

It's a very picturesque castle, both inside and out. The old stone is weathered and mossy, with the fortress' medieval bones still exposed here and there.

Looking down at Chris through a grating.

Like practically all other tourists, we put on the audio headgear and wandered around, pushing buttons to hear stories about the gatehouses, the stairways, the artillery, and the crazy people who lived and died there. It appears that these handy audioguides are replacing human guides at most of Europe's cultural landmarks, so it's kind of a surreal experience, with men and women of all nationalities moving around like silent automatons, inspecting and gawking and turning and walking all in response to commands issued by recorded voices in their portable CD players.

Looking out one of the gun emplacements, down the Royal Mile.

The castle held our attention for several hours. The best part was the castle's royal chambers, where you could view the Honors of Scotland: a massive sword, scepter, and crown, as well as the somewhat underwhelming Stone of Destiny, a sandstone block with two hooks in it. The guidebook mentioned rumors that the actual stone has runework and carvings but has been hidden from the English, a far more romantic image.

Big sword.

The most sobering exhibit was the shrine to Scotland's fallen sons and daughters, comprehensive lists of those killed in action, typed neatly on faded yellow pages bound in red books lying on stone shelves with light streaming in from a few windows placed high up on the walls.

From the castle we walked down the Royal Mile. We stopped at one of Edinburgh's ubiquitous woolen stores and each purchased a massive wool scarf.

Continuing down the road, we poked around St. Giles' Cathedral, no different than most Protestant cathedrals, but I did like the Thistle Chapel, a modern (20th century) addition in a corner of the building.

From there we headed south, to the Royal Scotland Museum. It was a wide-ranging display of everything from natural history to pottery to steam locomotives.

We didn't have much time (maybe an hour or so), so I made a beeline for what I suspected would be my favorite part: the Instruments of Science.

One of the cool things about 17th, 18th, and 19th century science is that most of the instruments used were made out of dark woods and polished brass. There were cases of telescopes, microscopes, sextants, and clocks, all gleaming in the soft lights of the room. At one time (up until the late 1800's, I'd say) science WAS fashion. But then the math required crossed a critical threshold of complexity, so that even ladies and gentlemen of learning had to rely on second-hand reports from the frontiers of science, rather than participating themselves. And so now scientists are unfashionably dressed and work in concrete buildings working with ugly instruments that our descendents will be ashamed of, rather than displaying in a museum. I mean, what would you rather have in your living room: a brass telescope, or a replica of the pile first used in controlled fission experiments? David Hirsch is excused from the survey.

The Instruments of Science (or at least a few of them).

We keep running into the problem of Time (and I'm not referring to my problem of being habitually late), first at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, and now at the Museum in Edinburgh. Here longitude was discussed briefly, but precision timekeeping was also used by scientific expeditions to make the first absolute measurement of the size of the solar system, late in the 18th century. Some of the telescopes and clocks from one such expedition were on display here.

The building housing the museum itself was worth looking at, with solid stone walls outside and airy galleries within.

The entrance gallery of the museum.

When the museum closed we walked back to collect our laundry. As in Greece, the ladies who washed our clothes were heavy smokers, so our laundry smelled faintly of cigarettes. Oh well.

We stopped briefly at the hotel, then headed out in search of dinner. We found a trendy restaurant called Negociant's in the University district. Although they consistently failed to have whatever I asked for on the menu, the food was excellent and they even had some Belgian beers on tap, which I hadn't enountered anywhere else.

7 March 2000

[Written 7 Mar 00]

This morning we decided to visit the Holyroodhouse, the Queen's Residence in Scotland. It was a stately mansion built over the centuries as a series of additions to a now-ruined 12th century abbey. The excessive trappings of royalty are always fun to explore, and Holyroodhouse was no exception. Each room was exquisite, with intricate carvings and tapestries and I can't imagine anyone actually living there. At some point I'd just freak out and demand furniture I could spill beer on and hang out in my underwear.

Through an archway at Holyrood House.

After a tour of the royal apartments, we walked around the ruined abbey, then started up the Royal Mile towards the castle.

We stopped for lunch at a vegetarian restaurant near the center of town. We had to move outside briefly at the end of the meal, because a fire alarm went off. Fortunately it was a false alarm, so we were able to return inside, collect our belongings, and head back out to do some shopping.

[Written 8 Mar 00]

While shopping, we happened by the Royal Gallery on Princes Street. I was sucked in by a poster for a Rene Magritte exhibit, sadly (and belatedly) I realized that the Magritte paintings were in a satellite gallery far from the town center. So I walked around the gallery's permanent collection.

The building itself was another Edinburgh beauty: stately stone columns outside, with a comfortable interior. Most of the display rooms were walled with a muted red felt, other rooms had different motifs.

Two stairwells contained copies of Roman busts, which reminded me of the the busts in the Uffizi, and the Vatican. The stern eyes of emperors followed me up the staircase to the Impressionists.

Among works by masters such as Gaugin and Monet was a society portrait by a (to me) unknown--Stagwell? Something like that. An aristocrat's wife reclined on a Louis XIV chair in a white satin dress (all the artist's own props, I later found out). She stared quietly back at me as the audio commentary droned on about how the painting was well received at its first exhibition. It could have been a fine piece of technical workmanship, but I would have enjoyed even a photograph--it was the young lady that sold the picture. Perhaps the painter's skill wasn't so much the brushstrokes as the choice of pose and the image it projected.

Around a corner was a familiar but forgotten pleasure--a Van Gogh work from his insane years at the asylum, late in his life. Twisted olive trees reached skyward like a titan's withered hands through a caucophony of color. I'm stretching for imagery here, but you get the point: Van Gogh was somehow able to communicate a strange beauty in madness.

We went back to shopping. I was looking for a decent duffle overcoat, something like Major Calloway wears in The Third Man. I though I might be able to find one in London or Edinburgh, but I doubt they make them anywhere in the world now.

Chris was looking for whiskey, shortbread, and tartan scarves. They have some of those in Edinburgh.

We decided to try an asian restaurant near Edinburgh Castle, but on the way Chris became enamoured of a pub called the Filling Station, so we went there. It turned out to be a TGIF-like restaurant, full of bits of 50's Americana.