Great Scot 3/5

On our first full day in Edinburgh we also decided to take a Dark Side tour, seeing that it would be Halloween on the Friday we both wanted to do something a little spooky, well me more so than Bonnie. There were a whole host of ghost tours and haunted Edinburgh tours that we could have chosen from, however we decided to go with another Sandeman’s tour. This tour wasn’t scary or meant to scare it was more looking at the dark history of Edinburgh and how some of the myths around the city were built up.

The tour started at 7 and it was a rainy night, which added to the eeriness of tour. The initial story of the tour was about the tunnels that exist under the Royal Mile. For years it was believed to be a myth that during the medieval period tunnels were built, however years after the tunnels were discovered. The only issue was that there were forks and turns and no lighting so no one knew where exactly the tunnels would lead. To solve this problem they sent down a bagpiper who played and those above could hear it. They followed it from the castle all the way to Tron Kirk where suddenly the music stopped. Search parties were sent down, but the bag piper was never found. It is said that now at 3 am you can hear the bag piper playing, trying to find his way out of the tunnels.

After this first story we then moved onto the North Bridge and looked over train station. It was here that we heard the stories of the witch trials of Edinburgh and how they used to throw women into the Nor Loch. The Nor Loch was not an actual lake; it was a man made lake – a lake made out of human excrement. It was in here that they would throw the bodies of women suspected of witchcraft. Those that drowned were proven innocent; those that floated were then taken to Calton Hill and burned.

We then as a group walked up Calton Hill, which in near pitch dark meant that the shadows cast around the small hill were quite frightening. The purpose of visiting the crag was that it is outside of the border of what was old Edinburgh. It was believed to be the place where the fairies and mystical creatures lived and later the site of the witch burnings.

From Calton Hill we stopped at the Calton Prison and Old Calton Cemetery. The cemetery is where Hume is buried along with a few other notable people. At night the cemetery was quite scary as there is minimal light. One of the creepiest sites is the gravestone that seems to have the image of a screaming face. This is tied to the story of the artist David Allen, who was said to be buried alive when he hadn’t paid some debts. Initially buried in an unmarked grave with the initials DA, later he was given a proper headstone. It was on the new headstone that the face appeared. Some say it is his screaming face, others believe that it is just the stone being eroded away.

The last stop on the tour was outside of The World’s End pub. It was here that we heard the story of Burke and Hare, two serial killers that lived in Edinburgh and made their money by selling corpses to a local medical doctor. These two men killed 16 people before being caught. In the end only Burke was charged and hanged, his skeleton can now be seen in the Medical Museum of Edinburgh.

Over all the tour wasn’t scary and it was a great way to learn the more sinister history of the City.

Great Scot! pt. 2/5

Down the Royal Mile

The first thing Bonnie and I did on the Sunday was take a walking tour of Edinburgh. The tour company is called Sandeman’s and operate all over Europe. They were a free tour option and in 2.5 hours were able to speak about the history of the city and some of the history of the country. Our tour guide Sabela was wonderful and she really made the history of the city come to life.

At a close

The tour started with the history of the country from a geological perspective before getting into the people that have influenced Scotland. This part of the tour explains the formation of the Highlands that happened because Scotland collided into England. It also talks about the 7 hills of Edinburgh, most of which are dead volcanoes.

The prison

This portion of the tour also gave us the history of the people who have lived in Scotland. It started with the Picts, who were the reason that the Romans didn’t stay very long and built Hadrian’s Wall to the south. These picts painted themselves blue and fought in practically nothing, their descendants still claim residence in Scotland and apparently can be identified because they will forgo the warm clothing as winter draws in. Then north of Hadrian’s wall the country belonged to the Picts, the Scots, Vikings and the Irish, all of which eventually became united under a common enemy to the south.  

Skip forward many years Scotland is then left without a monarch and so they go to England asking Edward I what they should do. He then picks a fairly weak leader who will be his puppet. However from this the people of Scotland are not happy, and up come their great hero William Wallace (Braveheart). I will go into more detail about him when I talk about my visit to Stirling Castle, the area where he won the battle of Stirling Bridge. After William Wallace the next person to take charge of the country was Robert the Bruce and he was the true hero that saved Scotland from English rule.

 

Edinburgh castle

The tour starts on the Royal Mile, so called because the street is capped at one end by Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace at the other end. This road also serves at the spine of Old Town Edinburgh. With numerous small closes running down either side

St. Giles

We found ourselves outside of St. Giles Cathedral (which really can’t hold cathedral status because it doesn’t have a bishop, but the name has stuck) and heard the story of the battle of the stools. Which a hilariously Scottish story of a woman who was sitting in mass when she noticed that the service was different and from a new religion that she got so angry she picked up her stool and hit the priest in the head with it. The rest of the congregation then followed her move and nearly killed the priest.

Merat Cross Pediment

At the corner of St. Giles there is also the Mercat Cross pediment, which is where the new from England would be announced 3 days later (the time it took to get from London to Edinburgh). Also to preserve that tradition when Prince George was born the news was announced from there 3 days after his birth.

One of the most common sights in all of Scotland and at the top of the Mercat Cross is a unicorn with chains around its feet and a crown around its neck. This is because the national animal of Scotland is the Unicorn – proving to not let drunk Scots vote on their own national animal. The choice of this animal also draws back to their history of being untameable and wild. The crown and chains represent the English who put it on all the unicorns to show that they could capture the Scots, however the fact that they remain on the unicorns show that it does take all that strength to keep the Scots.

Skyscraper

Edinburgh is also one of the first cities to have skyscrapers. Not in the sense of New York or London, but that the houses that were originally built were called skyscrapers. This is because the city was walled in from the Castle down to World’s

End. So having nowhere to build but up, which is what the people did.

Near the Mercat Cross on the ground is a heart. This heart is a little bit odd, that is because it has nothing to do with love or something good. It is known as the Heart of Midlothian and marks the place where public executions used to take place. Currently it is the only place in Edinburgh where it is ok to spit on the ground, apparently you can tell locals from tourists by how they react to the heart. Locals will spit and avoid the heart, where tourists think it is something cute and pose beside.

Heart of Midlothian

From there we walked up towards the castle and got a good view down the Royal Mile. We also got a story about the city in medieval era. When the city had been walled in the waste was just tossed out of windows. There had been some much of it and it was constant they told people that they could only toss it at night. When they were tossing it they would shout out of the windows: “Gardyloo” which comes from the French: “Garde a l’eau” meaning ‘beware of the water.’ So people out at night after a few drinks would be walking in between the narrow alleyways and hear that being shouted so they would look up just in time to see the waste hit their face. This they say gave birth to phrase: “SHITFACED” for being drunk.

One of the most significant things about Edinburgh is that it is the literary capital of the world. This is because the city was home or the birthplace of some of the world’s most famous writers. The most celebrated in the city is Sir Walter Scott, but there are quite a few others as well. Sir Walter Scott does have his own monument and it is the world’s largest monument dedicated to an author. The other famous authors that have ties to Edinburgh are Arthur Conan Doyle who was born in the city, Irvine Welsh, J.M. Barrie and probably the most famous J.K Rowling who wrote Harry Potter in Edinburgh and currently lives in the city.

In fact there is a lot of reference to things in Edinburgh that are seen in the Harry Potter series. There is a road that does run on a diagonal, and most likely inspired Diagon Alley. There is the George Heriot School, which has four houses and looks like a palace, obviously inspiring Hogwarts. Finally there is a cemetery that has graves with the names Moody, McGonagall and there is one to Tom Riddell (which is Lord Voldemort’s real name).

Before we finished the tour we saw what is Edinburgh’s most famous statue. That of Bobby the skye terrier. It is a dog that was made a citizen of Edinburgh because of what he stood for. He was the dog of a night police officer, who when he passed away Bobby would sit on top of his grave everyday and he did that for 14 years until his own passing.

This has been a very wordy blog post, but I did learn a lot about the city and its history on the walking tour. I wanted to share some of that knowledge. There is still more that I have to say and it will appear in the next few blogs.

Great Scot! pt. 1/5

Unlike in Canada the UK has more holidays throughout the school year, they have these week long breaks in the middle of each term which means that as a teacher I will get a chance to do a lot of travelling in the UK.

For my first half term vacation I decided that I wanted to visit Scotland. This was because the weather is still pretty nice and I can save vacations to warmer climes when the winter hits London. I also had the benefit of a travel friend in fellow teacher Bonnie. She had also wanted to visit the country and it was great to be able to go visit with her.

We decided to make Edinburgh our central place and from there would go exploring to other parts of the country.

It was a great choice. Edinburgh is a beautiful if very windy city. Nearly the entire city is preserved with both its Old Town and New Town being UNESCO world heritage sites.  If you ever have the chance to visit the UK make sure you include a stop up in Edinburgh. You won’t be disappointed.

Scotland also has a very Canadian feel to it. The people are friendly, if sometimes hard to understand. The landscape also is reminiscent of Ontario; the stretches of fields (which unlike Ontario has tonnes of sheep), the mountains that emerge as you go north and of course the numerous lakes or lochs as they call them in Scotland.

Two things that I did notice that will be something you notice if you ever visit. One, that there was very little reference to the referendum. It was of course brought up in the tours to explain a few things or to give an explanation as to why it lost. However there were no big signs and people didn’t seem to flaunting their choices.

The second thing is the utter disdain and mocking for the film Braveheart and Mel Gibson. They point out all the flaws of the story and portrayal and just rip apart this film.

In four days Bonnie and I were able to cram in 4 tours and a lot of exploring on our own. The next few posts will cover my trip, some history about the city and the country of Scotland. If you want to see all my photos feel free to check out my facebook page.