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!