In which things are much less rude at Holyrood

In reading my previous post, it occurs to me that I don't think I emphasized how very disappointed I was with our experience at Edinburgh Castle. I had been really looking forward to it, and it was just so painfully crowded it hindered my experience. That said, I'd like to go back again and give it another shot, because I feel like there were cool things there that I didn't really get to absorb. Oh well. 

When I left off we had exited the castle with the plan of walking to the other end of the Royal Mile to Holyrood House, the official Scottish residence of the ruling monarch.  It's a pleasant walk from one end of the Mile to the next, and it gave me some time in a less agitated state to appreciate some of  the city. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

                                                     What's the matter? Never taken a shortcut before?                                                                                                                                                                                                            

                    

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We finally arrived at the palace, where as I'm sure it will surprise no one at all, you can not take pictures once inside. There are some truly lovely pictures to be had in the arrivals courtyard, though.

This is one of those "the picture doesn't really do it justice" things. This gate and archway was gorgeous.                                                     

I honestly think this picture is slightly crooked because of how much the wind was blowing my camera around.                           

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

One thing I must say I'm very disappointed in myself for, is not taking a picture of one of the guards inside the initial vestibule. I swear she was Merida from Brave. She had the gorgeous, unruly, blazing red hair and everything. You'll just have to use your imagination. 

The inside of the palace is both gorgeous and fascinating. While the areas used as the private quarters of the sitting royal family are off limits, you do get to explore the official rooms which are still used today - including the room where the Queen takes state visitors, and the hall where she presents various awards and, you know, knighthoods. Little things like that.  There are also the ancient parts of the palace, many of which feature in some of the more sordid episodes from the life of Mary Queen of Scots. You can stand on the spot where one of Mary's favorite advisers was brutally murdered on the orders of her jealous husband. If that's not your thing, you might enjoy how the guided tour did an excellent job explaining the way the visitor's path is laid out to increase intimidation as one would get closer to the room where you were to encounter the reigning monarch. 

After you are done with the interior, you exit into the ruins of Holywood Abbey. Dating back to the 12th century, but abandoned to ruins somewhere before the 1800s, this has to be one of my all-time favorite ruins.  There's something about the way the Abbey still has touches of splendor even in its ruined state, and its position directly in the literal shadow of the palace that give it the kind of romantic qualities that one usually expects to find in a gothic poem. And good news! You can take pictures here!

 

I particularly like this figure's carved thistle. 

Once done with the Abbey, you'll have the option to explore the gardens, which again are cultivated to the preferences of the Queen.  She uses these gardens during her visits in good weather to host garden parties and other official state gatherings. On the day we were there, it was extremely windy and a bit biting - not at all garden party weather - but we still decided to tour the grounds a little.

Exterior of Holywood Abbey as seen from the garden.

Coming around the far side of the gardens,  you will have an excellent view of Arthur's Seat. 

All told, we spent a little over three hours at Holyrood - and they were absolutely wonderful. This was by far one of my favorite stops on our trip. 

When we were done there, we waffled a bit about what we should do next. In our waffling wanderings, we came across the back end of the property at Holyrood and discovered this fun gem. 

 In the end, we decided that dinner and an early night back at the B&B were in order. We found an excellent gastropub, which had the misfortune of being visited by an extremely loud and obnoxious American at the same time we were there. (Yes, we are American. No, we are not extremely loud and obnoxious. And that makes all the difference.)  After dinner we went in search of Edinburgh's famous fried Mars bar - an actual deep fried candy bar. As it was Easter, the shop we found was also advertising the seasonal specialty of a deep fried Cadbury egg. I passed on both "treats". Of the fried Mars bar, Adam says that while not "amazing and transcendent" it was good, and he was glad he tried it. I'm still not sorry I didn't.

It was getting dark when we caught a cab back to the B&B, and on the way I happened to catch this picture of Edinburgh Castle as it looks from below. 

 It really is a beautiful building, and a beautiful city. In all honesty, my experience there was a let down for me, but my expectations were about sky-high. Looking back on it now, I'd like to give it another shot. Maybe on a cloudy day.

The Sun (Nearly) Ruins Everything

Our morning in Edinburgh dawned bright and sunny.  And that was a problem. I think I've mentioned it before, but man, do I HATE the sun.  It's something to do with the fact that when the sun gets in my eyes I go totally blind.  And it hurts. And also, it makes me go blind.  I can go from happy-go-lucky to effing FURIOUS within a heartbeat if I get sun glare in my eyes.  And that was about to happen, but first - breakfast!

If you're wondering if there are differences between a Full English Breakfast and Full Scottish Breakfast, the answer is yes. A Scottish breakfast is more likely to come with black pudding instead of link sausage (no thank you) and a tattie scone (yes please).  Our breakfast was delightful and we were entertained with plenty of chat with one of our hosts, who was eager to discuss cars and the new dishwasher they had hired who was apparently terrible (and who walked in as we were talking, only an hour late!). 

When we travel, we mostly go at our own pace.  But this day we actually had tickets to a thing and had to be there at a certain time.  There's only one thing that makes me ragey as fast as the sun in my eyes, and that is being late. We asked our host if our destination was walkable and he gave us kind of a middling answer. He mainly suggested taking a taxi or perhaps the city bus.  Now, I'm all for learning the local mass transit systems, but not when I'm trying to get somewhere by a deadline.  I wanted to take a taxi. Adam wanted to walk. Into the full sun.  Without really knowing how long it was going to take us to get where we needed to be as this was our first time ever in this city.  

Yeah. 

I think my meltdown/temper tantrum happened about ten minutes into the walk. I'm not sure. Not my proudest moment, no.  However, before embarking on this trip, Adam and I had talked about ways to avoid trip-spoiling fights.  He encouraged me to take some deep breaths (in... out... in... out) and figure out what I needed. Well, as it turns out, I needed a damn taxi. One was hailed and we arrived after a brief trip at our destination. Would we have made it on foot? I'm not sure.  But I am sure that I was still feeling punchy, so we stopped into a cafe for a quick coffee and a call home to talk to my boy, who was hanging with his Grammy and Aunt Patty and not really giving a second thought to Mommy and Daddy not being home (thanks, kid). Revived, we crossed the square to our morning's adventure: Mary King's Close. 

History lesson! And it's a long one, but it's worth it! I think.  Anywho. Although I've been in several cities over a certain age, I've never seen one with the structure of medieval Edinburgh. Like many ancient cities, it was walled.  When the population expanded, they did not move the walls out, instead, choosing to just kept building up.  Narrow streets sloped down the ridge that Edinburgh is built on, terminating into a marshy lake (Nor Loch, now gone).  These streets were called closes, and were often named after their most notable resident. Buildings at one point reached a height of up to 8 stories which is pretty impressive for the 15th century. While many of the buildings which existed on the closes were destroyed over time, in the 18th century when the Royal Exchange building was founded, only the top layers of the buildings on Mary King's and a few other nearby closes were destroyed. The rest were closed and buried under the newer buildings. 

What's left of Mary King's is now open to tours, guided by a costumed "in character" guide.  I had read about this a few years ago, and knew I needed to go someday. This was that day!  Was it everything I wanted it to be? Yep. Creepy, intriguing, informative, enlightening.  Do I have awesome pictures? Nope. Because you're not allowed to take pictures.  Am I sorry I just talked a lot about a thing I can't show you? I am not. Because I am going to link to their web page and tell you that if you're in Edinburgh, this is worth doing. Here you go: https://www.realmarykingsclose.com/

Ok, I do have one picture, taken in the lobby where you can leave any belongings you don't want to lug down into the close (it's steep and very narrow at parts). 

After our tour, we posed outside of another nearby close.  Please note, blazing sun and my squinty eyes and not entirely happy looking face.  Also, crazy hair, because holy shit was Edinburgh windy.  The hair situation would only get worse as the day went on, trust me. 

We began our walk up the incline of the city to our next destination, noting some cool architecture and sites, and a few more closes along the way. 

As we got nearer, we got a great view over parts of the city. Ha, I just noticed all those tour buses.  Huh, that explains a lot about what was about to happen, actually.

Figured out where we were headed yet?  Edinburgh castle, of course!

We purchased our tickets and proceeded through the first portcullis gate, still climbing up up up. 

The views were absolutely spectacular.

A guide stood nearby, and it looked like he'd be embarking on a tour soon so we joined the crowd. He turned out to be a German national, serving as a tour guide here in Edinburgh.  By the way, our tour guide at Mary King's was from Venezuela. And the lady who made my coffee in the cafe was Italian.  

There are no Scots in Scotland, ladies and gentlemen. 

The tour was actually quite delightful, although I will point out that at one point it started snowing. SNOWING. We were lead up the rest of the castle and had various interesting elements pointed out to us. I don't remember a lot of them, but here's some fun pictures!

The guide left us off at the courtyard at the very top of the castle, which is where the tower in the next picture is.  This is the tower that is on the building that houses the Scottish crown jewels.

We joined the queue to go through the tower.  No pictures allowed, but it was a spectacular display. I didn't get as much time in there as I would have liked since not only was it crowded, but the crowd was made up of some of the RUDEST BUTTHOLES IN THE WORLD. 

Sorry for the outburst, but there was a particular tour group of about a hundred people who were clearly members of the "WORLD TOURS FOR BUTTHOLES" tour group. I don't do well with getting intentionally pushed and shoved, so I did give up after a few minutes and step outside. I'll go back someday and get a better look.  Sadly, this was not our last encounter with the WTFBH. 

I needed to take a breather, so we decided to get some lunch. There was a nice cafeteria style cafe where you could pick and choose items, and I don't remember what I ate but I do remember it was my first taste of Tunnock's tea cakes. They look like this:

Ever had a Mallowmar? These are better. Seriously. Don't know what a Mallowmar is? Well, now you have TWO delicacies to seek out. Luckily Tunnock's are available in the US. Take my advice - GET SOME. You can get them at World Market. Go right now, I'll still be here when you get back. 

In a much better mood after a delightful culinary experience, we stepped back out onto the main terrace of the castle to observe the one o'clock cannon fire. This daily blast goes back to the 19th century, and was initially intended to allow all of the ships in the harbor below to use a single standard to set their maritime clocks.  Now it's just for funsies.

Also up on the castle's main terrace is a display of cannons, including Mons Meg.  Mons Meg is famous not because it's a big cannon, but because its projectiles are absolutely massive - 20 inches!  Imagine a 20 inch cannon ball flying at your head. On second thought, don't - it's a really scary thought.

Here's Adam posing with Meg: 

One of the buildings which had been pointed out to us during our earlier tour was St. Margaret's chapel.  Built in the 12th century, it is officially the oldest building in all of Scotland. It's a tiny little building, but it has some really beautiful details - not to mention just the idea of the history behind it. It was built for St. Margaret to conduct her private prayers and devotionals when she was just Margaret, wife of King Malcolm.  And hey, it allows pictures!

Saint Margaret herself in stained glass. I'm guessing they installed this AFTER she was no longer using this chapel. 

Another building that allows photography is the Great Hall. This one dates back to 1511, and is full of armor and medieval weaponry. But I really liked the wall ornamentation. 

We explored some more, going through a prison where English, Irish, American, and other nationalities of pirates and prisoners of war were held. It was a disturbing experience, actually, as it was made clear that when the Scottish authorities captured a wanted ship, they held everyone on board prisoner - including cabin boys.  The youngest noted prisoner ever held there was about five years old. Conditions were less than ideal, and it was really sad to think of a mere child being held there, probably for years.

Another building I don't have pictures of is the building which contains the rooms in which Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI.  It's a suite of rooms, but the bedroom where he was born is actually quite tiny.  Adam and were in the room only a few minutes when who started pouring in the door but the WTFBHs. It was like the opposite of a clown car - dozens of people squeezing relentlessly into a tiny tiny room.  I made for the door and indicated to the group that I'd like to get out, thus making more room for them, but they barely glanced at me as they pushed me aside and kept streaming in.

That's pretty much when I'd had it. I declared it was time to get out of the castle! Our next destination was Holy Rood, at the lower end of the city. I'll write about that next time!

A Road Between Countries

We left York after a last breakfast at our hotel, and I couldn't help but wonder if any other point on our trip would charm me quite as much as the city had. To add a little touch to the bitterness, a ways out of York we dug in to the shortbread we were given with our room and discovered it was the best shortbread we had ever had. And it was far too late to turn around and find the bakery it had come from to get more, which trust me, we would have. 

This day was designated for travel between York and Edinburgh, with a few stops to see some sights - most notably the amazing Hadrian's Wall. But first - Corbridge!

As we headed north to the border between England and Scotland the scenery became more and more rural. Little villages with perfect town squares - one pub, one church, and a collection of cottages -popped up at intervals. In short: we drove through paradise. 

If you've ever wondered where all of your Canola oil comes from....

We clearly hadn't had enough of the ruins of ancient Roman settlements, because we headed first for the Corbridge Roman Settlement museum and site. If I recall correctly, we were drawn there mostly because we wanted some input on what would be the best route to take to see the wall, but we figured we'd check out the ruins as well.

The visitor's center was pretty quiet, so we spent some time chatting with the one woman working there. She was super fun to talk to, even if all the directions she gave us for the best places to see the wall were useless.  She also pointed out that they had some mead samples.  Never ones to pass up free booze we were happy to partake. One of the bottles out for sampling was a traditional mead and was one of the best I've ever had. It tasted exactly like you would expect Christmas to taste. In fact, it was so good, we bought a bottle and brought it home. I don't have a picture of  it, and as it's currently half empty on my bar I'll use this one from the English Heritage Shop website (www.english-heritageshop.org.uk).

The other one that was out was a ginger mead, which the woman working there described as "feeling like you've been kicked in the teeth by a donkey". I didn't partake of that one, but Adam did. After he regained his ability to speak we agreed to not purchase a bottle. 

With our mead and useless directions in hand, we thanked our hostess and took a little time to meander through the visitor's center's small display of exhibits. At the very end there was a map showing the ancient Roman/Scottish border and the current towns of the area. Here's one of the worst pictures of me ever, but I was all excited to see Loudoun on the map, as it is the place for which my home county in Virginia was named. 

I don't know why I'm making this stupid face.

The site outside the visitor's center consists of the remains of Coria, a Roman town that went through quite a few iterations before it's eventual abandonment - and even then there's lots of evidence of the people who lived in the area afterwards using the structures and building materials for other uses. The main structures seen now are consistent with Coria having been a garrison town - a place where soldiers at the wall and beyond could come to pick up supplies, their pay, take a rest, stop in a temple. The buildings are remarkably easy to imagine in their full glory, and there's some truly cool stuff like the ruins of an ancient fountain that would probably run just fine if you put some water through it. 

Picture time! Most of what you see in these pictures dates to about 163 AD. Which just blows my effing mind, I can't even tell you.

Standing on a two thousand year old Roman road, NBD.

Where does a mansplainer get his water? From a well, actually....

Experts aren't sure what this room was used for, but as it is sunk into the ground with very thick walls and only one entrance/exit, it's thought to be a storehouse for weapons or gold.

As the ground settled, many of the walls took on this undulating pattern, which I kind of love. 

Okay, maybe I got a little bored of the Roman ruins after a while. I started taking shots of other awesome sights in the surrounding hills. Like this. Which I don't know what it is or who it belongs to, but can I please be invited for dinner? 

We knew once we left Corbridge there wouldn't be a lot of other options for lunch, so we stopped in to the Golden Lion, seen on the left in the picture below.  Also seen in the picture below, irresistibly adorable Corbridge town center.

We ate a fairly typical pub lunch and were served by an absolutely adorable young woman with the richest Northumberland accent in the world. She asked me if I wanted chips or roast potatoes with my entree and I asked her what she would recommend. She screwed up her face in sincere deep thought and said "Proper chips, that way you can dip it in the gravy."  At that point I do believe I died of an adorable overdose.

Lunch over, we were off again. However, it wasn't too long before we were seeing signs for Aydon Castle and figured "why not?"  To access the site, you park a bit down the road, climb a stile, and take a little bit of a walk down a country lane. If it weren't for the sun and the bright blue sky, I'd say it was the Englishiest moment.

Aydon Castle stands on the site of an original timber building, of which nothing remains and nothing is known except it was there. The stone building was started in 1296 and variously updated, most notably in the 17th century, all the way through its last use as a lived-in space in 1966. The families which built it and subsequently lived in it were well-off farmers, merchants, and sheep, er, growers. Why would agricultural people need a fortress complete with curtain wall, you ask? Scots. Lots and lots of Scots. The Scots actually did manage to capture Aydon in both 1315 and 1346.

Picture time!

The outer wall as seen from the approach.

Never did find out 100% what this was, but our guess was cold storage or ammunition storage. Either way it was cold and really slimy inside. 

Family marker and date over one of the more substantial mantelpieces inside the home. 

Atmospheric kitchen shot.

Stupid confession time: I have absolutely no idea why it entertained me so much to find that the kitchen had built in cabinets with shelves. But it did. Medieval shelves!!

Up on the wall! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's your very own panda travel blogger!!

After Aydon, we continued up the road a bit, looking everywhere for a good place to stop to see Hadrian's Wall. Dating back to about 122 AD, the wall is considered the largest existing Roman Artifact and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  And if you want to know more about it, well Google is your friend. 

I had known about Hadrian's Wall for a long time, and I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting. Maybe some crumbling stones you can use your imagination on to remember it was once a wall. Certainly Adam and I both thought we'd find a designated spot to go see what there was to see. But after driving around for a bit, we decided "Hey, this wall is about 84 miles long. If we just stop the car and meander, surely we'll find it." And that is what we did. 

We saw a family walking through a field and decided they had the right idea. A bit down the road we saw what we assumed was their car and we parked behind it and got out. First things first, let me say it was windy. Like, finding it difficult to catch a breath windy. Like, your husband's favorite hat which was on your lap gets blown away when you open the car door and you don't even notice windy. (I'm so sorry honey.) But it wasn't cold, so it wasn't a horrible experience. Second thing, we climbed over the stile (lots of those in the UK) and realized why the Romans chose this place to build their wall. Contrary to popular belief, the wall does NOT divide England and Scotland. What it does (did) do, is protect the Roman settlements in the north of England from the wrath of the warrior Scots. When you look down and realize just how steeply the ground drops off just over the ridge, you realize that yep, this is great place for a defensive wall. It says something about the formidable nature of the ancient Scots that even though nature had provided an excellent vantage point, the Romans STILL felt it necessary to build a ditch in front of the wall. 

We encountered the family we had seen earlier as they were on their way back to their car. They confirmed that yes, if we kept walking this way we'd encounter the wall. We were advised by them that it was a bit of a walk onward, but well worth it. At least I think that's what they said - it was so windy I could hardly hear them.

Finally, there it was. The crumbling suggestion of a wall I had expected.

Wait no, that's not it. Here it is.

Not really crumbling much at all. And I didn't need my imagination to think of it as a wall, because, well, it's a wall! It's kind of unbelievable how much it's still standing.  

We marveled, we posed for pictures, we walked and we contemplated. After a bit, we found ourselves at the end of this section of wall, which was divided by a narrow lane and (another) stile and continued on the other side. Adam offered to go back and get the car and pick me up in the lane and I agreed.

I sat on the stile and just took in the moment. As I was down off the ridge the wind wasn't blowing so hard. It was very quiet. I listened to some birds, hoped in vain that in my stillness and calmness I would spot a hedgehog, and thought about the remarkable fact that I was sitting alongside a two thousand year old wall that had borne witness to so very much history. It's hard for me to imagine a moment in my life when I felt more at peace than that one.

Even though no other cars had come or gone down the lane while I waited, as soon as Adam turned down to where I was another car followed right after him. He pulled up beside me, but I told him since the other car couldn't go around to just go down the end of the lane and come back up. He did so, but to my surprise the car behind him also pulled up to where I was and rolled down the window. I was half expecting to get chastised for blocking the lane or for loitering on the stile, but instead I was greeted with a hearty "You look like you've found the best seat in the county!" I agreed that I had, and that I might just stay there a while longer. "Well, all you're missing is a drink, I'd say." I said that was a great idea, and that my husband would be right back with a bottle of mead. "Alright, well we live just down the end of the lane. We'll come back with some gin and tonics!" I laughed, they laughed and drove on. They made my awesome moment monumental. 

Adam told me that he had actually struggled to turn the car around because the lane seemed to go on and on without ever really widening. He pulled into a driveway to attempt a u-turn, but the same car I had just chatted with pulled up and told him if he continued on a hundred feet or so, he would find a wide spot to do a perfect turn around. He thanked them, and came to tell me of the awesome couple he'd just encountered and I told him of our lovely conversation as well. 

I had to stop writing for a second there. Can you get homesick for a place that's never been your home? Can I have this day back, please?

Having seen the wall, the next thing on our to-do list was get ourselves to Scotland. Adam thought it would be prudent to find a gas station as he was under the impression the border was fairly sparse and he didn't want to risk running out of fuel on the way.  The only problem was that the drive back into any kind of significant town took so long it actually ate up much of the fuel, and time, we had left. We finally found a station in Hexham, but it wasn't open on Sunday. A local shopkeeper directed us to a 24/7 station another 20 minutes away ("Oh yes, they've finally opened one just several months ago!") and we made it there just as the fuel light came on, and five minutes before the Starbucks across the street closed. (I am a Starbucks addict. Sue me.)

We were now fueled up, but worried about the time. The sun was going down and we were still in England.

Our B&B in Edinburgh had a strict 10pm deadline for checking in and we honestly didn't know if we'd make it.

We crossed into Scotland and came into Jedburgh. It was full of gas stations, I kid you not.

Jedburgh is also home to Ferniehirst Castle, the ancestral keep of the Kerr family.  Adam is related to the Kerrs through his mother's side, and he had really hoped to lay eyes on the home. No sooner had he decided that it was just too late to even try to see the house (which isn't open to the public most of the time anyway) than we saw a sign for Ferniehirst. We both craned to see through the trees to at least spot a turret when we came around a corner and there it was. We had about ten full seconds to see it, but see it we did. It was dusk, so no pictures, but here's one from the Googles if you're interested.

Nothing eventful happened on the rest of the drive (except for a bird that tried to race a truck and lost with a *POOF*) and we made it to Edinburgh at 9:45. We found our B&B and as we were pulling in to park a man who we discovered was one of our hosts ran towards us from a house across the street yelling "I didn't think you would make it!" He was warm and welcoming and showed us into the house, which was lovely. We told him we were terribly hungry as we hadn't eaten since the stop in Corbridge. He told us most things were closed but we could find a kebab shop about a quarter mile's walk down the street. Um, yes please.

We made the walk and acquired the legendary doner kebab. If we'd known they were the size of a baby we would have ordered one and split it. We hauled our treasure (which for Adam also included a legendary Irn-Bru) back to our room, ate as much as we could, and fell sound asleep in minutes.