Edinburgh: Aaarrrggghh Chum (23-26 November 2006)

Rise and shine Thursday morning at 6:30 to board the train to Edinburgh at 8:00am. Damn it’s raining again! We always seem to be getting caught out! So on the tube to Kings Cross. This station is huge and links the tube, regional and the Eurostar all in one station. All aboard!!! The former “Flying Scotsman” route to Edinburgh.

A lovely train ride through Newcastle and up the coast to the capital of Scotland, Edinburgh. There really is some stunning scenery through these parts. 5 hours later and we were there. Just in time to enjoy some fine Scottish weather, with the wind and the rain coming in.

Found our self at a small pub on the Royal Mile for lunch. This road is one of the main shopping streets in the city and goes through the old city. Edinburgh is broken in two halves by a large valley with the main station and a park right in the middle! Most of the large shops are on the new side which is much more like a regular city with avenues etc. But the old city is really nice with winding cobble-stoned roads and small alleys connecting them.

Cam ate some haggis, which was actually very nice! Nat had the vegeterrible lasagne which wasn’t quite so nice. A relaxing afternoon. It was so hard to leave, as it was so homely and cosy in there. Especially the fact that all the all pubs in Scotland are non-smoking which is a really nice change!

Off to the hostel, which is about ½ hour out of the city. There is a handy shuttle bus that runs out of the city. Turns out the hostel is about 1 minutes’ walk from the waters edge. Lovely spot overlooking the bay, with the Forth road bridge in the distance. This bridge has an interesting history. You can check this out at www.wikipedia.com

We met one of our room mates, Silvia a Spanish girl from Malaga (that’s the one in Spain) She even gave us some of her sushi to eat, as there is not much in the way of shops near the hostel! It turned out that she was a lovely girl with the typical Spanish happy, helpful personality. I think that siestas really make a happier person! We had a drink and a laugh, and watched a couple of movies in the theatre room at the hostel.

FRIDAY

It was time to explore this beautiful city. We decided as the weather was looking good to go up to Edinburgh castle. This is perched on the hill overlooking the city. It is where they have the world famous New Year celebrations and the Edinburgh tattoo each year. There have been inhabitants on this hill for over 4000 years. They built a castle here in the 10^th century AD, and has been steadily built on over the years. It is a very impressive castle in it’s own right. It doesn’t have the huge spires or ornate architecture of most castles that we have seen, but has been built to last. More like the Kingswood rather than the Statesman of castles!

We got an audio guide which was very helpful also. There is heaps of history on the attempted sieges and stuff. They have heaps of the cannons still set up including one that goes off at exactly 1:00pm each day. This has been used for hundreds of years by ships and the locals to set their time to. There was even a map distributed by the council to inform you of how long to allow after the actual bang, because of the time taken for the sound to travel to you. Hope that makes sense? If not maybe need to ‘wiki’ it! www.wikipedia.com

They have some great museums there which are included as part of the entrance fee. There is about 5 in there, of which we checked out 3 of them. Mainly about Scotland’s war history, which was very interesting. They had the prison setup as it was in the 1700’s when they had mainly prisoners-of-war from France, England and America. They had the old hammocks setup with camp fires and cooking utensils all there. Also had some discreet speakers around the place to make it feel like you were in the middle of conversations between the prisoners! An unforgettable place. This is about 10 metres below the castle with only 1 window to share. The original doors from the prison had been preserved and investigated. They found several carvings from the prisoners with pictures of ships, names and dates in different languages. All very interesting.

They also had the Scottish crown jewels there. Just before they were united with England in 1707 there was a lot of fighting going on. Some people decided to hide away the crown, sceptre and ceremonial sword in a chest.

150 years later, people were wondering if the jewels still existed. Somebody decided to dig it up and sure enough, they were all still there! In perfect condition still wrapped in the original linen cloths. These were all on display including the original chest.

We checked out another couple of museums which related to war and Scotland’s part in it. More photos of course! Then it was time to head off. It is hard to believe it was only 4:00pm and it was almost dark, and very cold! We needed to warm up. What better way than a fine Scottish Whiskey! Just up the road was “The Scotch Whiskey Experience” This is a tour informing the un-initiated about Scotch. You first get given a tasting glass of scotch and are shown how to ‘taste’ the whiskey. Swirl and check out the legs on the side of the glass! Smell and drink. We then watched a couple of videos on how they make the whiskey.

We then went on a ride which travelled around and showed the history of whiskey from the early years to today. To finish off Cam had four tastings of four different types of whiskey. The whiskey comes from different areas of Scotland which means that the tastes are really quite different. After being warmed up by whiskey we headed across town for dinner. We went to ‘Wok & Wine’. An awesome Hong Kong style Chinese restaurant, with a real romantic feel to it. We walked in and they took our coats and escorted us to our table. The restaurant’s lighting came from the candles on each table, and every table had a red rose. It was very romantic! The food was absolutely beautiful. This mean has to be one of the best we have had so far in Europe. The service was excellent, our wine glass was never empty. The food was prepared with the freshest ingredients. We had spicy squid, which was extremely fresh. (Very hard to find in Europe). Aromatic Duck, Steamed Dim Sum and fresh stir fried vegetables. Absolutely delicious!!

Saturday

Today we decided to go to the museums. The weather was extremely cold, even with thermals on! Check out the photos! Could we possibly wear any more clothes!

We went to the Scottish Museum and learned a lot about the history of Scotland. Nat learned that golf balls used to be made out of leather and stuffed with feathers! In 1700 golf was banned because the King thought it was getting in the way of archery practice! Cam learned that Scotland used to be down near the equator 4000 million years ago! So all those years ago Scotland was once hot! Amazing!

The museum included how Scotland evolved from cave man times to Roman times. The move through simple peasant life, to industrial revolution, to modern day Scotland. In the mid 1800’s the Government decided that sheep were more important and evicted millions of people from their homes. All the homes were burned to the ground to prepare the land for sheep grazing. Sheep were the main source of income for the country and at this time millions of Scot’s immigrated to other countries including, Australia, Canada, America, Africa. They also had big machines set up to show how fabric tartan was made. They also displayed some Scottish inventions including the telephone, television, steam powered pumps and various others. We were also able to access the roof terrace which had excellent views of Edinburgh Castle and the old town. There was the first free telescope we have seen in Europe so far!

Next we went to the National Gallery of which there are three in the city. Cam seemed to enjoy it. Lots of portraits. The most memorable being a self-portrait of Rembrandt. Oh and the fact that the gallery was free! Afterwards we had some soup in the café downstairs. The café overlooked the ice-rink that’s been set-up for Christmas. We then looked at some modern artworks from young Scottish artists. Pretty cool.

We headed back outside and walked around the city. It looks so beautiful at night. There is a big Ferris wheel and all the trees are decorated with fairy lights. It looks just like you would see in the movies. The only difference being it wasn’t snowing, but it was very cold. They even had a German Christmas market! Tonight we had to resort to McDonalds for dinner as our bank balance is looking rather sad! We headed back to the hostel and typed up our blog!

Sunday

We were up and out of the hostel by 9.30 and took the local bus to the city. It was a nice leisurely drive in to the city. Definitely a ‘Sunday Drive!’ the driver definitely was in no hurry! We picked up some sandwiches at the local Sainsbury and had a quick coffee before boarding the train back to London. We had a great long weekend in Scotland. We will definitely be back, if Cam can handle the cold! Nat had to buy him gloves to stop him moaning. What a big girls blouse!

Back on the train to big bad London.

Check out the pictures of the rest of the trip in Photobucket here: http://s108.photobucket.com/albums/n1/
cambodian073/Scotland/Edinburgh/

Well after spending a month in London, Xmas is nearly upon us. We are on our way to La Plagne in the French Alps for Skifest 2006! Skiing here we come!

Cam & Nat