Saturday: I landed in Dublin early on Saturday morning and then stood in line for customs for a good hour. It was ridiculous. They had only 3 or 4 lanes open for Non-EU passports, and two huge planes just came in from the US at the same time. EU passports had multiple lines for about a 1/16th of the people. It was quite annoying, but luckily I had given myself enough time between arrival and take-off of my Ryanair flight to Edinburgh. Had to switch terminals for Ryanair and then I was ready to go on my first Ryanair budget airline flight. I had heard lots of things about this airline - some good and some horrific, so I was a little nervous. But it was all fine and we arrived in Edinburgh, a short hour later :)
Alas, it was sprinkling when I arrived, but no big deal - this is what I expected! What I didn't expect was the bipolar weather of bright sunshine, sprinkles, then bright sunshine two minutes later, then snow. And their snow is really weird - it looked fake, seriously like the stuff at Disney World that is basically soap bubbles. But yet again, it was "snow" then stop 5 minutes later. Interesting, but that was okay.
Anywho, I grabbed the bus into the city and I got off just across the park from the Old Town. I found my way to my hostel and was able to check in right away because it was past 3pm. For the first night I was in a 4-bed mixed room and it was decently spacious. The hostel, Castle Rock Hostel, is one of the best in the UK and I definitely have to say it was very old, but the rustic charm of old; had great common areas and helpful staff. I do think there could have been more bathrooms, but oh well! The location was fantastic. It's namesake of "Castle Rock" really is true because you step outside the door and BOOM, the Edinburgh Castle is right there. Pretty awesome.
I was pretty hungry so my first stop after checking in was to this small little meat pie shop, called Piemaker. I had a traditional Scottish meat pie for only about 2 pounds - YES. It was the perfect, cheap little pick-me-up. My next stop was the Surgeon's' Hall Museum. I arrived and there was only a little over an hour left of the museum being open and I had a tour of something scheduled right at 5, so I needed to hustle through. The ticket-seller urged that people usually need more time, but I decided to go anyway. I am so glad that I did, but I wholeheartedly agree that I could have spent SO much more time there. The history of surgery part of the museum was pretty interesting with all of the old medical instruments that were used and such. Edinburgh was a premier city for surgeons back in the day, and it makes complete sense that this museum dedicated to this branch of medicine is here. My favorite part of the museum was the pathology exhibit. Oh my, I could have looked at this section with multiple floors for much longer than the 30 minutes I had. It had many old tissues, bones, organs, etc. displaying what a healthy organ looks like and what an organ looks like when it has a specific disease in it. Absolutely fascinating, but not for all.
Next stop was my tour at the Real Mary King's Close, which I had reserved ahead of time for 5pm. The tour was a bit cheesy, but it's one of the few ways that you can get down to see the underground streets of Edinburgh. Now, it's not as if these streets were originally meant to be underground, but many of these "closes" (alleys) were built on inclines and eventually the city just started building up over them. Speaking of being on inclines, one of the most disgusting things I learned was that everyone would just throw their human waste out into the streets where it would run down the hills and eventually into the river. No wonder disease was so rampant during the 16th century and so on. We learned a bit more about the plague and it's two different forms: bubonic which is transferred by fleas from diseased animals (people often lived with their animals and of course nothing was hygienic so fleas were admittedly everywhere); or pneumatic which can be transferred person-person from coughing or even breathing on another. I also learned that the plague doctors wore their garb that they are known for, not for a sense of "death" as they are somewhat seen now, but for practical terms in that they could not get bitten by anything if they wore clothing on their entire body, as well as the "beaked masks" they wore were filled with simple aromatics and filters to keep out the "bad/infected air". I'm not sure if they knew that both of these things were perfect ways to prevent contracting the plague, but it worked. These doctors didn't actually cure anyone, they were mainly there to keep count of the number of deaths from the plague. Horrible.
Lastly, I tried to find a recommendation of a good pub for some live music from the waitress, but got lost and was just incredibly exhausted by this point. So I walked back closer to my hostel and went to Maxie's Bistro, a cute little eclectic restaurant where I ordered a fried brie with cranberry jelly and Scottish Smoked Salmon. Both were appetizers, but the smoked salmon especially was very filling and delicious. The service was kind-of crap, where I was forgotten about a lot, but I was also cranky and tired and just wanted to go to bed. Which I promptly did, by 10pm....
Sunday:
...And I didn't wake up until about 8 or 9, letting myself sleep in good and long to try and recuperate. The hostel didn't have free breakfast, but at least it had cheap breakfast - 1.10 pounds. My first stop of the morning was just across the street and up the hill to the Edinburgh Castle, and WOW. As much as I've traveled around Europe, I think I have only seen one true castle - the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, so castles can still absolutely stun me. Plus, the Neuschwanstein castle was only built in the 19th century whereas this was established around 1200. Crazy! First, it's strategic position of being on top of a hill was fantastic for views - I was able to see all of Old Town, the newer parts of the city and even a bit to the harbor. As well as I'm sure it was strategic for you know, war and stuff :) There were many places to see on the castle grounds and so I would highly recommend about 3 hours here, though you could probably do more, since there are various little museums that I didn't go to. Here are some of the things to see besides the amazing views and OLD rock buildings:
- St. Margaret's Chapel which is the oldest building in Edinburgh and dates back to the early 12th century. It's very small, but you can just feel the history of how old it is.
- The Royal apartments, where the Scottish royalty lived. Inside these apartments, one can find a timeline of the royal family, the birthplace of King James I who was born to Mary Queen of Scots, as well as the Scottish Honourable Jewels - crown, sceptre, and sword- much like the Crown jewels in London.
- The old prisons where they kept prisoners of war, and most memorable to me was that this was where some POWs from the Revolutionary War (Americans) were kept. Quite interesting.
After visiting the castle, I walked over to Greyfriar's Kirkyard, which is an old cemetery. I always love visiting cemeteries because they are so beautiful and it's amazing to me to see people who were buried hundreds of years ago - so different than our graveyards here. Most of the weather today had been sunny and beautiful so far, in fact the ticket-seller at the castle asked where I was from and I said Boston and she said I must have brought the sun with me - she had no idea how much this was true as I continued my 3-week journey. After my stroll through the graveyard, I needed some lunch, so I grabbed a quick sandwich at a place I had read about before that is for meat-eaters only - called Oink. This simplistic shop has pulled pork sandwiches that you can have on a couple different types of bread and with 3 or so toppings - and that is all. I had a medium-sized sandwich (which was huge) with applesauce (I wasn't quite feeling haggis just yet) and it was so good and it was all less than 5 pounds. SCORE! Patting myself on the back for cheap-eating thus far :)
My destination while walking along the Royal Mile was to the other end where the Palace of Holyroodhouse is located. This is the official Royal residence in Scotland, whenever they actually visit - which isn't very often. It was built in the 16th century and was the official palace of all Scottish Kings and Queens. You can't take pictures inside so I don't have any of the actual palace. BUT I did get a picture of the beautiful ruined abbey at the back where I think coronations happened. The best part of the palace was seeing Mary, Queen of Scots bed chamber, it was up in one of the towers - and the scene of a murder while she lived there. Across the street from the palace was the Scottish Parliament building that has some pretty crazy-cool outside architecture, but it wasn't open to visit. That's alright, I didn't have a ton of time.
I walked back down the Royal Mile where I popped into souvenir shops and this great liquor store that had lots of different whiskys and a number of different craft beers. I asked someone on the staff to recommend a good craft beer and he gave me a few options for "half and half", meaning the malt that was used to brew the beer is the same as the malt that was used to make a specific whisky. So on the label of the beer, they tell you what whisky to pair it with and you have "half and half". I bought one of those and a little "nip" of the matching whisky to try out together later at the hostel. I also stopped at a local artisan's market in an old church where I bought a beautiful, incredibly warm plaid scarf that I obsessively wore the rest of my trip :)
My next stop was a local brewpub by BrewDog, a craft brewery in Scotland that I had actually heard of. I ordered a flight and enjoyed most of their beers and just finally sitting and relaxing - I had done too much walking and really needed a break. After the brewery, I went back to the hostel to write in my journal a bit and try out my beer/whisky combination- pretty good! Then I decided to go on an evening tour of some of the "darker sides" of Edinburgh, but first I needed some dinner, so I stopped at another place I had looked up before called the Baked Potato Shop, which was vegetarian. I had a vegetarian haggis baked potato that was really delicious- it had been a long time since I've had a baked potato.
The tour I took was with New Sandeman's and it was their "Dark Side" tour. It was 3 hours - quite long and a lot of walking, but it was nice as it took me to places I hadn't visited yet. It wasn't necessarily that dark of a tour, but it was very informational! The highlights of the tour were going up to Calton Hill, which was incredibly windy for one, but also gave us a fantastic view of Edinburgh - all parts of it and Leith and the coast as well! The photo from the top of this page was taken up there. There is a one tidbit that was interesting about a tale that parents would tell their children to get them to clean their rooms. It sounded very familiar to our little friend, the house elf - Dobby from Harry Potter. I can't remember all about it but it had something to do with if you gave them an article of clothing they would go away- or thereabouts. See? This is what happens when you wait too long and don't write a full journal.
My favorite part of the tour and the part that I was hoping to learn more about was the grave-robbers. Since there was the Royal College of Surgeons nearby in Edinburgh, and a shortage of bodies to practice surgery on or even for regular anatomy classes, grave-robbing bodies was a highly lucrative job for criminals. The tour guide told one story about a person who was buried alive (not on purpose, they didn't know they were alive) and when the grave-robbers were trying to cut off a finger to take, the person "came alive" again and obviously scared the bejeezus out of the grave-robbers. But the most fascinating story of the grave-robbing days of the 19th century is about Burke and Hare, two men who under the guise of grave-robbing and giving the bodies to the surgery hospital, murdered 16 people to then give to the college. Brilliant, but horrible, obviously. It's amazing they got away with it for so long! They were finally caught, but Hare ratted out Burke and so only Burke was actually executed and Hare served a short time in prison and lived awhile after. Quite scintillating stuff!
After the walking tour, since it was incredibly windy, I wanted to pop into a pub for a drink quick before trekking back to the hostel. I stopped into the World's End pub, which is named that because at one point, where the pub is located was the town lines and to some it really felt like the world's end. There wasn't any place to sit at first so I just stood at the bar and ordered a drink and immediately some girls started talking to me, one from Spain and one from Finland and I ended up talking to them for a couple more hours. This is why I love traveling, and especially traveling solo. It doesn't happen every time I go out to eat or drink, but you would be surprised how friendly people are and how willing they are to include a lone person in their conversation :) I finally headed back to the hostel, where I was staying in a 12-bed female dorm (not as cozy as the night before).
My next post will be on my trip to the Highlands, but don't expect it anytime soon as much as I'd love to write it soon. I'm being realistic!