Edinburgh
The one postcard I desperately wanted is the one photograph nobody seems to have taken, possibly because it’s difficult to find a good vantage from which to take it: Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags taken from the vicinity of the Edinburgh First dormitories, where they really do outline a lion crouched over Edinburgh, looking over Holyrood Palace toward the Firth of Forth and downtown.
If anybody has that picture, I would cheerfully pay for a good print.
Edinburgh is a city I can imagine falling in love with, just as I fell hard for Holyrood Park the day I got here. It’s a city built on a human scale: walkable (even the hills), courteous, inviting, with a welcome sense of long history that never becomes stifling or snobbish. Though it’s currently jam-packed with tourists owing to the Fringe and sundry allied festivals, it isn’t hard to see the quieter workaday town underneath. The person most responsible for inviting me here, Robin Rice, graduated from UW-SLIS and worked in Madison for a time afterwards; she went to some trouble to move to Edinburgh, and I can completely understand why.
It does rain here and it does blow, so an umbrella is better than nothing and rain gear is better than an umbrella. It doesn’t do all-day rains, though; half an hour and the rain is over, or so it’s been since I’ve been here.
This morning, after another excellent breakfast from the kindly and hospitable staff of my hotel, I set out a-wandering through the Old Town. I got slightly lost, but happily so, as I wandered past the imposing Herriot School and the marvelous view from Keir Street behind it. I landed at the Grassmarket at last, which was set up for a half-art-fair, half-flea-market; I found a little something-something there I think David will like.
Edinburgh Castle is an immense old pile, on an even immenser cliff. It’s all done up with a makeshift stadium for the Tattoo, so I decided to pass on touring it and make my way down the Royal Mile instead. This is… well, tourist kitsch is what it is, I’m afraid, but there are tidbits of interest here and there, notably St. Giles’s Cathedral (which, like Edinburgh itself, is humane rather than imposing) and a kirk halfway down with a rather remarkable graveyard in back.
I detoured up the North and South Bridge (such views!) to New Town, taking in the Sir Walter Scott memorial (pretty good for a novelist, I thought!); I elected not to climb it, as I knew I’d be coming back Holyrood Park way. I dallied through the Princes Street gardens and some of the side streets, managing to locate a Sainsbury’s for a quick and cheap lunch to take back to the gardens.
Reaching the bottom of the Royal Mile at length, I decided to tour Holyrood Palace and its ruined abbey and its gardens, which are honestly worth the rather steep admission fee. Mary Queen of Scots, James VI/I, Charles II, Bonnie Prince Charlie and his sad death, and any number of other royals have set their marks on the place. (Also, a plaster cast of the skull of Robert the Bruce has grisly pride of place in a display of curiosities.) Magnificent tapestries are everywhere, and although they are clearly partly there for pure convenience (they keep out cold), that doesn’t stop them being beautifully woven. The gardens are sedate, well-tended, green as green. I do hope Their Royal Highnesses enjoy the place; it deserves to be enjoyed.
The remarkable display of Italian Renaissance art in the Queen’s Gallery is a testament to the treasures piled up by the crown. You wouldn’t believe how many da Vinci cartoons it is claimed belong to the monarchy if I told you. I quite liked a Pallas Athene (not by da Vinci) with brooding dark eyes in a luminous face.
I could have just walked around the Queen’s Walk back to my hotel, but Holyrood Park was calling, and despite my sore feet, I could only answer it. I didn’t climb anything this time, as I hadn’t the shoes for it; just walked on the path through the valley between the Crags and the Seat, listening to bees and birds and delighting in the beauty around me.
And now, exhausted but perfectly content, I’m sitting and blogging and thinking about packing for the trip home. I missed out on quite a few things I’d have liked to see, but really, I think that’s only right. One ought to leave a city as fine as Edinburgh feeling as though it had more to offer.