Scotland, Edinburgh, August, 2015

Scotland, Edinburgh, August, 2015

 

Well, here I am in Scotland, of all places! I have been in England for about a week and decided that I wanted to have a "glimpse" of this beautiful country. So, I took a plane up from Bristol, and arrived here in Edinburgh just in time for their month long festival.

So, I have not heard of these before, but I am staying for the 2nd time (the first time was in Bath) in a budget almost dormitory style motel. I have a private room, and it is very clean and neat but just has the minimal extras. That's okay by me.

 

When I was in Russian, I heard that Stalin wanted the people to spend their time out in nature and not cooped up in a room, so I immediately went out my first evening and went to dinner at The Devil's Advocate which was recommended by, I think it was, Trip Advisor surveys.

 

The food was really good. I had chicken in a sauce with quinoa and vegetables.

For dessert I had their crème brule which came with a ginger snap. After that event I kept looking for great ginger snaps in Edinburgh. My favorite!

Most walking tours start here.

Near the Cathedral on The Royal Mile.

Then did an evening walk called something like "The Walking Dead". It was about graveyards and ghosts, that sort of thing. I remember doing a night time walk in London that was about Jack the Ripper and what a great evening that was.

So, off we went! There was about 20 to 30 of us doing this walk and we started off on the steps of the cathedral located on The Royal Mile. Edinburgh was big on witch trials when that was in vogue. The people here loved to watch burnings and hangings and that sort of thing. Kind of like the Colosseum was to the Romans.

We went into a church graveyard and was told that "back then" I want to say like the 1400 - 1700's, the city of Edinburgh was surrounded by a city wall and there wasn't much space, so when it came to burying the dead, they didn't have much room for that so the rich had crypts, stone enclosures where they put the body in a coffin and built a mausoleum or at least had a grand headstone and ornamentation. 

The poor were a different story. They just kind of threw them in a common grave kind of area and piled bodies one on top of another. The guide told us that the area that we were standing on used to be flat ground but became a "mound" from all the bodies piled up. She asked us to guess how many bodies we thought were piled up there.

Then she told us - the expert's guess is that there is between 200 and 400,000 bodies piled up beneath our feet!! Crazy, huh?

There was a story she told us about a John Gray that had a dog. When John Gray died, his dog came and laid on his grave. This continued for a long time and so gradually, people became aware of the dog and started to bring food for the dog. Then the dog became somewhat of a cemetery mascot until the dog died.

Well, a lot more was said about dead bodies and the like but more about the town. The main drag is "Kings Row" and lots of people were hanging out there.

There was a magician that I watched for a few minutes,

a statue man who l looked like he was riding a bike.

I really liked that one!

There was a woman with many face piercings. I didn't get a picture of her because she walked away too fast. But, I talked to the tour guide that took us to Glencoe and Loch Ness the next day and he said that she is entered into the Guiness Book of World's Records for the most face piercings. Also, the guide told me that everyone knows her and that she is married and her husband is a conservative, more main stream kind of guy. Go figure!

Here is what the side streets look like.

They have a special name. They are called a "close". The Devil's Advocate Restaurant's address was on
9 Advocates Close.

 

Here are a couple of door entries. The first one I can read. It says "Blissit Be God CF Al His Gifts" (Blessed be God sic (for) all his gifts) It also had the date of 1590!!

"Spec Altera Vita 1590"

 

Here is the second one. I can write it out but I don't know what it means. Also, there appears to be a crest of some sort over the 2 doors.

Anyway, enough for my first evening in Scotland, Tomorrow I take a trip to northern Scotland and stop to 2 sites up north - Glencoe, where there was a historic massacre, (by the way, my family came from Glencoe and I have knowledge of a relative who was there when it happened!), and Loch Ness (you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if I saw the Loch Ness monster or not).

Take care! Until tomorrow!