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A Trip To Auld Reekie

By

Kamouraskan and Lariel

Disclaimer: This article is copyright to the authors April 2008. All photos used (except one) were taken by and are the property of the authors. Thanks to Freefoto for the picture of the Scottish flag.

Lariel has been going up to Edinburgh on business for a while, but I hadn't ever been because we usually go to Scotland via Glasgow or Prestwick airports, (more or less on the western coast,) or we drive north from Liverpool. From there we'd usually turn west or continue north, but I'd never been east.

Now I regret not having made the effort before.

One, because for the first time in a trip to Scotland, it didn't rain for almost the whole time, and two; for a Montrealer, where the grey stones and public buildings of a certain era were all built by the Scots, Edinburgh was like returning to the Mother Ship.

The greystone architecture is both familiar and superb. I've never seen so many buildings over 6 stories before, and the idea that many in the 17th century were as high as twelve floors boggles my mind. They have a perfect mix of wide boulevards and open public spaces, large green parks with follies and natural features contrasting with cramped medieval laneways leading almost anywhere, begging to be explored. As well, there are the large stretches of pedestrianised streets, history in every yard, ancient pubs with local beers on every corner, a massive intact castle; hey, everything I ask for in a city, and they speak English.

There's tons of tourist stuff to see and do, but if you should start to tire of the city and start hankering after the more rural, rugged Scotland, there are numerous coach tours that begin here and lead to all of our favourite spots in Scotland at a reasonable price, including such must-see sights as Glencoe, Lochs Lomond and Ness, Oban and any number of ruined and suitably romantic Scottish castles, including Urqhart on the banks of Lock Ness, where if you're lucky you might get a sighting of Nessie as she limps wetly up the shores. She has been seen there. Apparently.

(Our favourite Nessie sighting is one where the observer claims that she never actually saw Nessie, but was pursued by 'something' right up the steps to her house where she slammed the door and cowered until help came. No doubt watching the doorknob turning while water seeped under the doorframe.)

A note about the prices. Perhaps it's because we're dealing with the currency I have used as my own for 8 years, I might be a bit defensive. The money may look different, but Scotland uses the pound and so do I. But I'm not going to use any numerical notation, because I do not want you going through the whole unnecessary rigmarole of converting the exchange rate in your head. If you ever make it over here to visit, LONG before you come to England, convert your Canadian and US dollars to Pounds or travellers cheques. Watch as your money pile gets cut in half and then - get over it! Because the real conversion rate for most stuff is one to one. As my daughter learned a while ago, a meal at McDonalds that costs 4 dollars, well it's 4 pounds here. I'm only saying this because the alternative is that one happy night in Britain, you'll be out eating in some nice restaurant, having a not particularly posh dinner, like say Chinese, and freak out when the bill comes, by converting it into supposedly real terms. "MY GOD! 40 pounds? That's over 80 dollars for just two people in a Chinese restaurant! That's at least twice as much as I would have paid…" etc etc, thus setting up a lifetime of teasing from your amused girlfriend. Get over it. The real exchange rate is one to one. Things cost more over here, but the salaries are double for us.

Right, got that? Any prices I mention, it's one to one.

So here are our recommendations and stories.

After last month's laziness, where I didn't do any of our usual research online before the trip, relying instead on our copy of the Rough Guide to Amsterdam and almost blowing the whole trip because they sent us to every wrong restaurant in town, I decided I'd better start carrying my weight on this trip. (No fat jokes, please, we're working on it!) Ignoring the now almost useless Rough Guide site (yes, I'm still mad and happy to kick them again,) I settled into the member comments sections of Virtualtourist and Tripadvisor.

First, a bit of geographic orientation. Like Rome, Edinburgh is surrounded by seven hills. The most important is the one that the castle sits at the crest of, looking down through the Royal Mile which trails from the castle to the Royal palace of Holyroodhouse, at the base. Holyrood, incidentally, is the official Scottish Royal residence of The Queen and family when they're not shooting, hunting and fishing at Balmoral, which is hardly ever. Holyrood is just a little property that came down via Great Great etc etc etc Aunty Mary Queen of Scots, no doubt as her way of showing her immense gratitude to the British monarchy for all it had done for her.

The Royal Mile is the shopping and historical backbone of the medieval city and that's where we were staying. It was obvious from even a quick read that there were more than enough to and places to eat in just that general area, so it was more a matter of parsing our choices down to the ones we would enjoy, could afford without grimacing, and wouldn't wear our feet down to the bone. Because most of my time previously in Scotland has been spent in the rain, I worked out indoor and outdoor pursuits.

So what did we do? First, we saved huge dollars by staying in a Travelodge

Yes, we didn't stay in one of our beloved Scottish B+B's this time, or in some luxurious castle. We're cheap, we were staying in a city and we wanted to be close to everything. Strangely enough that was a Travelodge.

So we got a 'family room' at a Travelodge for £26 a night. A family room means a bath and lots of space, usually a 3 seater couch that rolls out to another bed. Basic cable TV and a tea/coffee selection and nothing else. So who cares? We were right off the main drag, it was clean and the bed was comfortable with a bath to soak in after a long walk. I'd be recommending this place to all of you, but the buggers blew it.

We must have stayed in almost a hundred places in the past seven years, and yet this was the first time we were ever flat out refused the right to stash our little carry-on bag behind the counter for a few hours until picking it up before our flight. The only option given was to extend our room for three measly hours (our flight was at nine PM, and they would extend from noon to three) at a charge of £10.

I also wasn't pleased when we waited at the bar for fifteen minutes for a beer, and before being told, 'she's around somewhere, probably cashing up, and she closes in ten minutes'. Well, then that means the bar is still open for ten minutes, doesn't it?
Apparently not, and we went to bed without a night cap. Curse them!

Yes, we knew it was a cheap hotel, but guys? When the customer comes in from rambling about, dropping with exhaustion, they occasionally like to be able to open the door to their room. They don't want rest their weary heads on a locked door knowing that just a few feet away is a bed that their backsides are begging for. The last thing they want to do is have to get back in the elevator and back to the reception. And if they do all of this, and have the cards swiped so that presumably, but with no proof, that now magically the key will actually WORK, you should give an explanation or at least a small little apology. Guys, you have a great price and location, and it wouldn't cost any more to be nice to the guests as well.

If you haven't figured out by now, I do a £5/£10/£15 (in more expensive places or under a cheaper currency, that becomes 10/20/30/ each) per person budget for breakfast, lunch and dinner respectively, always hoping to skip a meal or spend less on one to carry over to a major dinner meal. This makes our budget for a dinner max out at £40.

Now at the top of the list of best reviewed restaurants was 'The Witchery', which had raves about its ambience etc and I was tempted to blow the budget for one night there. But the fact is, we are not gourmands and the idea of paying £20 to £30 for a main course that I wasn't drooling over beforehand was not attractive. The drool, the meal; any part of it. For example, we're not the types for a Seasoned Raw Fillet of Beef With Chips and Fried Quail Eggs. Leaving aside the fact that it's a fancy version of steak, fried eggs and chips, it's actually the chips that I object most to. French fries in a meal likely to top £100 easily?

So I changed my search priorities, allowing that we are plebs, and checked out the highest rated pubs. Nearest our location and on the Royal Mile were many pubs and tourist restaurants but not really wanting to be ripped off, I read through the recommendations. 'The Mitre' sounded good, with reasonable prices and it boasted of serving good, solid pub grub. 'The End of the World' also caught my eye with a few easy to eat Scottish traditionals, also at reasonable prices.

We found 'The End of the World' easily enough, without any apocalypse required, as it was at the corner of the Royal Mile that we were staying on. Never let if be said that the end of the world is far away.

It's called this, incidentally, because to the residents of Edinburgh, the city walls were literally the end of the world and the pub was situated just inside the city walls. The walls no longer stand in this part of the city, but fragments of them do still remain elsewhere.

It's a classic pub, with some pub style food but with a few specialities. We had the haggis, tatties and neeps as a starter (that's mashed potatoes, mashed turnips and haggis for the uninitiated,) and as a sampler between two people and for the necessary ceremonial requirement of properly eating Scottish whilst in Edinburgh, I'd recommend it.

I tried their 'award winning' Drambuie chicken if only because I'd never seen anything cooked in Drambuie before, and it was pretty good. All this plus Lariel's equally excellent meal, desserts and two drinks each came to under £35 for a good start on the trip.

Our meal for the second night was 'The Mitre', once again on the Royal Mile, and the menu contained only the British pub classics. Lariel fretted over choosing Fish and Chips (never at its best we find when served on a pub plate and not in its 'fresh from the chippy' paper wrappings), eventually settling for Scampi and Chips, and I had the very traditional and apparently 'award winning' Bangers and Mash. All of it was excellent. More beers and a dessert, and once again, well under our £35 limit for everything including tip.

For our final meal, we ventured South of the river and decided to go Italian for a change. Bella Italia is a chain restaurant, but with a decent menu and at decent prices, and the one we found was handy for people who had to collect their bag from storage at the train station and hop on the bus back to the airport in an hour and a half. Even so, the food was very tasty, the service very speedy and the garlic bread very garlicky.

While wandering up and down the Mile we had checked out the breakfast menus for something under £6 for a full English (or as national pride demands, Scottish, if you can handle the addition of blood pudding and porridge) breakfast. There were dozens to choose from and our eventual decision was made by the nearest location to wherever we were headed each morning. Snacking between meals was easy - the Royal Mile is lined with cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants, plus the occasional convenience store where you can buy a carry out lunch if you'd rather keep to your wanderings.

Staying on the subject of food and drink, we resisted the urge to sample another Scottish tradition - whisky, neither of us being spirit drinkers, but if it is your poison, there are plenty of off-licences and specialist shops selling the stuff, not to mention the inevitable whisky distillery tours. But we did load up with Edinburgh rock and nibbled on bars of the melt-in-the-mouth candy as we wandered around. We also gave shortbread a miss, as it's hardly a novelty item here in Britain anyway.

So in between eating, what did we see and what would we recommend?

St Giles Church. This was the great Protestant leader John Knox's church and we were told there was a short service and music at lunchtime, though it wasn't made precisely clear when lunch actually was, something I had expected of the Scots. Of course, the fact that each of the town clocks was off by about ten minutes was not comforting me, especially considering my obsession about clocks and accuracy, something I thought had been handed down to me by my supposed Scots ancestry. I mean, this is a town that economises on letters by spelling the name 'burgh' and pronouncing it 'borough.' You've got to admire the thrift in that, but I also appreciate accuracy. Maybe when the high season arrives they'll have it fixed.

St Giles is an impressive building both inside and out, and as it's so centrally located just down the street from the Castle, it's definitely worth a visit. The gift shop is a crowded little place reached from the street and was cared for by a sweet lady more than willing to chat. Something I do far too much of, but was allowed to indulge in Edinburgh. She asked on my accent and I asked about the church, all of which somehow led to a discussion about my father's old school. You see, a few years before he died, whenever we went to Scotland my Dad would tell me we had to go to Edinburgh and look up his old school. He'd given me detailed, and as I'd never been to Edinburgh, completely useless directions when you have no point of reference to begin with. With her help, we found the school on one of our walks later that evening.

The church itself is beautiful. We attended the 12:00 - 12:10 service if only for the blessing and found the lay people more than eager to be tour guides. Originally an ancient Norman and later a medieval Catholic church, St Giles is now the head of the Presbyterian Church and a Black Watch church as is my grandfather's in Montreal. Trading on that familiarity, I was able to get a private tour. Highlights are the Thistle Chapel, a miniaturised version of the Knights of the Garter room at Windsor Castle, though instead of the invested barons' pennants hanging from the walls, they have the coats of arms stuck like beer labels on the wooden panels lining the room. The intricately carved wood work is fascinating and possibly your only chance to see an angel playing the bagpipes.

Edinburgh Castle. Obviously, a must see. It's a bit pricey and although at £11 it's as expensive as Windsor Castle, it is in some ways a bit of a miniature version. Instead of miles of guns, sabres and daggers fixed on the walls in spirals, there are only a few, which is no bad thing if you're not into ostentation or loads of militaria. But it's still well worth the money, especially if you take the free tours available. The tour guides seem to love their jobs (ours spent another twenty minutes afterwards chatting with the two of us, clearly filled with a love for and pride of his country ie Scotland) but the tour only describes the outer buildings and their importance, letting you wander about afterwards on your own. And there is a lot to wander around in. The Scottish Honours (crown jewels, ceremonial sword, sceptre and ball) are all in place, plus an interesting exhibition explaining how they were used, stolen, lost and rediscovered.

There is also that ceremonial bit of sandstone from Scone castle, used for centuries for the coronations of Scottish Kings before the Brits decided to shanghai it to London in order to create the illusion that their coronations were unifying the land. A decade or so ago, negotiations were made to return the Stone of Scone to the Scots and it is now with the rest of the Scottish Honours in a beautiful resting place in the castle, only to be loaned to the Brits when the next coronation is to take place. The plaques and descriptions are well written, with interesting historical information and there is even a lead version of the honours, subtitled with brail, for the blind to touch and feel.

Like Windsor there are many aspects that are for the disabled, but despite the profusion of ramps throughout, I would not want to be pushing anything but the highest quality wheelchair about the cobbled precincts of Edinburgh Castle, though I applaud their effort.

There is also the oldest building in Edinburgh, St Margaret's Chapel. Robert the Bruce destroyed all but the one - and that was saved by his own special request - as he rampaged about after having recaptured the castle from the clutches of the dastardly English. Scotland's military presence is well represented, with military museums dedicated to different Scottish regiments plus the National War Memorial, and all included in the £11 entry fee. The views are beautiful from the crag and though pricey, it really is a can't miss. I realise that I might sound blasé about a thousand year old castle, something most of you would pay far more to wander about, but we have been to somewhere between 50 and 100 of the things. This one was still worth it.

The Real Mary King Close. Edinburgh has dozens of 'Ghost Tours' all competing or not competing throughout the streets and the pamphleted walls of the city. Once again I'd checked through most of them and read the comments on all of them. There are tours that promise to scare you for years to come, that will claim photos were taken with odd shadows and ghostly faces appearing mysteriously afterwards (before the days of Photoshop, we assume?), and then there are the literary tours. Other than Robert Louis Stevenson and 'Auld Lang Syne', and despite my claims of a Scottish heritage, my knowledge of the literature is sparse.

The Real Mary King's Close advertised itself as the only tour that spent all of the tour in the underground part of old (ie medieval) Edinburgh. The reviews were politely mixed. Some raved whilst others claimed it to be a huge rip-off, going so far as to be embarrassed for the guides. But I've spent years watching television show hosts go through some old cupboard or lifting boards under a bed and entering into the ancient catacombs of Naples or whatever, and I wanted my turn. So I kept it on my list, but with qualifications, as it's almost £10 a ticket. We went to check it out on our second day, with a view to returning the next day if it looked any good. We talked to a few people exiting and they gave it a thumbs up and more importantly, assured Lariel that nobody dressed in a Scream mask would jump out at her from a darkened alleyway, so we decided to give it a try.

The Royal Mile has several still active 'closes' or narrow lanes running down from it all along its length, all available for viewing, so one that was covered by a municipal building in the 18th century and almost entirely demolished is not sufficient reason to see it. But Mary King's Close was one of the major living and shopping arteries before its destruction and the tour has been organised to make the most of this.

You are escorted down into the cellars of the courthouse building, where the old streets were used as foundation supports. Your guide is dressed as one of the many occupations of the period and takes you through the corridors that have a few set pieces and figures with some furnishings to give you an idea of what the building looked like 300 years before. Each of the vignettes is based on the actual inhabitants in their own homes, picked up from contemporary records. It is very effective in placing you in a time where faeces and other nasties were dumped into the open streets, 12 people lived in a tiny room with just a fire pit for heating and cooking, or where city farmers shared their living quarters with their cattle (including the slaughter deck). That's on the lower layers of the buildings - the higher up the tenements you were, the wealthier you were. After all, you wanted to be as far away from the rotten, crowded, filth-strewn streets as humanely possible. Edinburgh wasn't called 'Auld Reekie' for nothing in those days.

One of the most interesting and poignant tableaux is the plague house. Originally a carpenter, the man of the house spotted an opportunity to fatten the family's purse by changing professions. Possibly the move from carpenter to gravedigger in a time of plague wasn't the smartest career move, and the poor unfortunate contracted the disease, brought it home to his wife and babies, then promptly died. Putting themselves into a 6 week self-imposed exile, as was the custom of the time, the family placed themselves at the mercy of God (for a cure) and their neighbours for food and water, which is a sound idea as long as your neighbours aren't popping off with plague as well. Which of course, they were.

Their only visitor would have been the plague doctor (who must have been an unbelievably brave man) and here he was, attempting to treat the sick inhabitants. The doctor cuts quite an eerie figure in the gloom, clad from top to toe in a thick leather cloak and a typical medics' mask from the time, possessing a large beak that he would have stuffed with herbs to protect himself from the poisonous vapours or 'miasmas' which were believed to cause the plague. The odd appearance of the beak gave the doctors' the name 'quacks', a reference that still is in widespread use today in England at least. This particular doctor, a real figure from the contemporary chronicles of the period, actually managed to survive this plague outbreak - an amazing feat and not thanks to his beak of herbs, but rather to his thick leather clothing. Apparently, the fleas carrying the disease couldn't bite through it. Another interesting aside - the authorities at the time didn't expect this doctor to survive (after all, why would they?) and so spent all his wages. He didn't die, and had to sue them for his payment. It's nice to know that corruption and greed in high places is timeless.

There is also a murder scene, a (rather poor one, it has to be said) ghost story in a former storage room, a complete 18th century house and the lanes through which they all walked. Most eerily, there is also a shrine to a ghost child Annie, made up of various children's toys. Annie apparently made herself known to a psychic who went down to explore the close in 'Most Haunted' style, complaining that she'd been left all on her own down there and that she'd lost her dolly. Our guide didn't report whether there had been subsequent encounters with Annie, but the gifts from well-wishers keep on coming. Interestingly, there are no contemporary records of any child called Annie, although that's not to say she wasn't there - it must have been almost impossible to keep track of individuals when they were living 12-16 to a room.

In case you were wondering, when the pile gets too big, the toys are gathered up and taken to a local children's hospice. One hopes that Annie approves.

Our guide was good, managing to make the tour both entertaining and informative even though we seemed to have been unfortunate enough to be on the largest tour of the day, something we might have avoided if we'd gone on one of the morning tours. Well worth the money. If I were to advise anything it would be to take the early morning tours when only a half dozen are on it. Any more than a dozen is not as enjoyable.

Calton Hill. Another site I wanted to see, if only based on the picture online. It looked like some massive Victorian's folly with Greek, modern and everything in between strewn about without any thought. I had picked it for a fair weather activity, assuming that as every other trip I'd taken to Scotland had involved days of rain, we wouldn't be able to take it. But we did and it was a perfect break from the cramped closes and claustrophobic cellars of Edinburgh.

There is massive amount of renovation and construction going on (throughout the whole city, in fact) so we were forced to travel about the base before finding a way up. Once there we visited the various monuments but the main attraction was the peace and the green grass about the hillsides surrounded by fabulous views, superior to those even of the castle. It has been well laid out in one aspect. From one position you look across its green outcrops directly to Arthur's Seat, and it appears as though (and I assume this is deliberate) they were one single stretch of highland hills and most beautiful. How the crowded citizens of Edinburgh managed to restrain themselves from building on these wonderful and perfect viewpoints is a credit to them and their ancestors.

National Gallery. Extremely impressed. The older building is allowed to stand proudly while underground passages link it to its modern sister in Scottish heritage. Good thing too, because there was little of Scotland to be found in the 'National' Gallery. We saw more Dutch paintings in the few hours we were there than we saw in our entire stay in Amsterdam, including some massive Van Dykes and the classic self portrait by Rembrandt (although to be fair to Amsterdam, we did only visit the Van Gogh museum while we were there.) The impressionists are also well represented and as it is all for free, definitely on the recommended list. And it has a beautiful café bar in the basement, looking out onto Princes Street Gardens, the former site of the infamous Nor' Loch (the reeking depository of all that medieval Edinburgh filth as it rolled down the closes), long since and very thankfully filled in and beautifully landscaped.

And here's something I cannot recommend.

East Midlands Airport. I have nothing against older airports. Having spent time in the last year in the latest state of the art buildings in China and massively renovated jobs like Amsterdam, Treviso (Venice) and Luton, I can say positively that warehouses like East Midlands are fine by me as long as everything works. Midlands looks like a major studio warehouse from the outside and in, and everything seems like it's built to be reassembled somewhere else in under 24 hours. I've seen more permanent installations in a Red Cross Blood Bank. Poor Ryannair and Easyjet appear to be running a series of market stalls inside of a metal barn. But what got my goat and tethered it to my anger, is that the automated parking pay sites decided in the midst of a massive downpour to reject all credit cards, leading to massive line-ups at both the machines and the customer disservice booths. Another line-up at the exits as people found that the gates weren't working and we needed to get out of the car again in the rain and call into the offices. All things that will make us think at least twice the next time we book a flight and consider our takeoff.

Fortunately, not even this was enough to ruin a great trip and I recommend it to all. We will definitely return again.