Aye, it’s Scotland now

This will be the (long) account of two days in Edinburgh, as I try to catch up to my schedule (if I fall too far behind, it will all fall apart). My cold has continued to make me kind of miserable 🤧, but perhaps it is finally beginning to abate.

So we headed out of York on a foggy morning. This is a good time to insert a weather report. We have had absolutely excellent weather since arriving. No rain, and not even much fog or cloudiness. Temps in the mid to high 60s. It looks as if we may make it through our entire UK portion of this trip without using our umbrella or rain jackets. Miraculous.

Although our day's start was foggy, it was bright and sunny by the time we arrived in Edinburgh. The train was pretty full, with numerous nationalities represented. Interestingly, we shared our four-seat spot with a couple from Utah. But halfway down the car from us was the cutest passenger who seemed to want to be anywhere except there.

The landscape is so green and beautiful! Just loving it.

Once in Edinburgh, we seemed to be arriving with a huge percentage of the human population (from all over the world) joining us. We ceded our place on the escalators to a group of young women who each had a glass of white wine in hand (I can only hope they weren't actually glass). I had no idea this was such a party city--this was at just after noon, mind. And once we were out on the sidewalk, I heard a woman in another group tell them that she was determined not to start drinking till 3:00. Given that we're in a place most folks refer to time in the military style, I thought perhaps she was telling everyone that she'd already been drinking for nine hours. But I guess she might have been just another of the many Amurricans that are following us around. The crowds were impressive, especially for aTuesday afternoon. More on that topic to come.

We powered through the throngs to get to our hotel room about 20-25 minutes away, dropped our bags, and headed out to the Royal Mile, the tourist and historic centerpiece of this city. That stands at an awe-inspiring height of about 443 feet above sea level, so it was certainly easy to figure out which direction to go.

As you can see, this is a place that should be somewhat easy to defend--but that doesn't mean no one tried. In fact, it's purportedly been besieged 26 times in the past 1,100 years, making it the most besieged in Great Britain and second-most in the world. Apparently it just begs to be attacked...

These days, the hordes swarming the battlements are people from all over the world (to the tune of over 2 million a year), so once up there on the Royal Mile, we again found ... lots of people, many clustered at the entrance to the Esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle. That Esplanade is currently the site of the large annual construction site as they install the grandstands (seating 8,800 a night for 25 nights) for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It's a huge thing, and it must keep the city handsomely sustained.

Anyway, there we were at the top of the Royal Mile, along with thousands of others (I know this is just the beginning of hanging out with lots of people doing the same things we're doing; if I am really observant perhaps I'll start to see fellow travelers in other places).

Rick Steves guided us down the street, with many fascinating stops along the way: the statue of David Hume, whose toes must be rubbed for good luck (sort of ironic that one of Edinburgh's great philosophers is reduced here to good-luck talisman, but we did contribute to the sheen of those big toes):

We had lunch at Deacon's House Cafe--not the better known Deacon Brodie's Tavern, but still connected to that rogue (Deacon) William Brodie, who was a respected tradesman by day and a burglar by night (and a gambler, womanizer, and seemingly delightful fellow). He was, of course, finally caught and hanged before a crowd of thousands.

Views on the Royal Mile:

Cindy's beer at Deacon's House Cafe

In front of St. Giles's Cathedral

St. Giles's Cathedral detail

John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian Church, is said to be buried under this parking space near the Old Parliament House.

Mercat Cross, with the Scottish unicorn on top. I love that the unicorn represents Scotland.

The Royal Mile is a city within the city of Edinburgh; you can spend days just exploring it. We finally ended up at the lower end of that mile and decided to head back to our room on a different path taking us off the hill and back to the flatter areas.

After a rest, we headed over to St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral for evensong. Upon stepping out onto Princes Street, we were sucked into a tidal wave of humanity, all headed in one direction (fortunately, it was the direction we wanted to go). We had no idea what was going on. Mass evacuation? Protest march? Some strange Scottish rite? Having finally extricated ourselves from that river of people, we consulted our trusty , handy-dandy computer-in-a-pocket, and discovered that the entire world (certainly, most of the UK) had descended on Edinburgh for a Bruce Springsteen concert that evening! And here we were, going off to a simple, sweet choral evensong. Much as I too love Springsteen, I was just fine with avoiding those masses who had come to town just for this night. The evensong was lovely.

And on the way back, we encountered a grand statue dedicated to William Ewart Gladstone, the British statesman and Liberal politician:

Afterward we had a very quiet dinner at Whigham's Wine Cellar. Well, it would have been quiet except for the group at a nearby table (in an otherwise almost empty place) that was having quite a raucous time. Why they weren't at the concert I can't understand.

And despite what I said at the beginning of this ramble, I just can't subject any of us to our second day in Edinburgh without a little break. So I'll close here with this lovely piece of information: The days are very long in this northern area, which apparently is about the same latitude as Anchorage, AK. Sunrise today (June 2nd) was at 4:38am and sunset tonight will be at 9:51pm. And we haven't yet hit the summer solstice!