Edinburgh Castle and that was pretty much it for today. Still... Many photos.
We had a lazy morning after yesterday's full on day and were not out until 11am or so. Partly on purpose as we reckoned that being at the Edinburgh Castle at 9.30am would be a bad idea as it was likely to be crowded as it opened.
We started the morning with Afternoon Tea (yep, served all day) at Patisserie Valerie, tea and scones, before we picked up our Military Tattoo tickets for Wednesday night at Market Street. Then up the hill to The Royal Mile and on to the castle.
Edinburgh Castle is really an old hill fort, added to over time and it's more obvious why it worked as a fortress and is still so impressive when seen from a distance.
The Castle's Welcome sign. Within the Castle walls it feels like a small town.
We arrived and found Robert the Bruce still watching over the place (the statue on the left) and William Wallace (aka Mel Gibson) on the right.
Behind us was the queue to have the tickets scanned before you can enter the Castle but we were surprised that there were no security screening points or issues with backpacks. Perhaps because the Royal Family no longer use this castle. Or maybe it was because this Castle has already withstood an 11 day cannon barrage about 450 years ago.
Finally we are inside. You could hire earphones for £3.50 or you could read the signs and storyboards. We chose the latter and started to make our way to the Upper Ward, which you can see in ths photo further up the hill.
Hans liked this sign. Drinking for a full year before doing anything... brilliant.
We start with a section on cannons. This gun is fired every day at 1pm and is called..."the one o'clock gun". No creativity here. Of course, a cleaning effort would be required afterwards.
This is Mons Meg, a huge ancient cannon that could fire a stone shot about the size of a beach ball up to 2 miles and needed 8 oxen to move it.
And this is the very very short story about Mons Meg.
Di couldn't help herself and had to climb one of the cannons. Well, there was no sign saying that you couldn't so therefore you can (our motto...)
Hans sat on the fence instead. No, it's not illustrative of how he lives his life.
This was interesting. The half circle just below contains grave stones, but not just any grave stones.
Yep, as you can see on the sign, the graveyard was for soldiers dogs and we could even pick out that one was called "Scamp" and another "Tinker". The crowds loved it but no surprise - the British founded the RSPCA about 100 years before founding a society against child cruelty. They love their dogs.
OK, what's next? Well, we do need to check out the Crown Jewels. It's a given and we just love the story of the "Stone of Destiny" (imagine us saying this slowly in a big booming voice - because that is the habit we got into when referring to the Stone)
The entrance to see the Crown Jewels, sceptre, sword and the "Stone of Destiny" was narrow and the stairs and path to get there was like a maze and went on for a quite some time and distance.
Along the way were various artifacts, pieces of art and informative signboards. To keep the punters amused while they were waiting for the people in front of them to move on perhaps.
An example of art along the way...
Two of these three people are not real...
We arrived at the inner treasure room where the Scottish treasures (known as honours) such as the Crown Jewels, sceptre, sword and the "Stone of Destiny", are kept behind glass. The room were they are kept is effectively a vault with doors that you normally see inside bank's safety deposit units. The "Stone of Destiny" is basically a sandstone slab and was once used for Scottish coronations. The last one in the 12th century before the British stole the stone. Why steal it? Because the legend is that where the stone resides Scotland shall be ruled.
Another good story surrounds the hiding of the Crown Jewels, the sceptre and sword for 100 years before they were restored in the late 1800's at which point they became a tourist attraction (and have been so ever since).
There were signs just outside to inform the punters that photography is absolutely verboten. Hans managed to shoot off a photo, but the young lady there who kept an eye on the punters to ensure that they behaved saw him. We chatted to her and she said that there was an elaborate alarm system guarding the treasures and even a camera without flash may trigger it. She claimed that if the alarm would go off, there would be helicopters in the air and a shutdown. We thought that it sounded a bit dramatic and exaggerated, but who knows...
After oohing and aahing for a while, we moved on to the Royal Apartments basically next door.
This painting marks the birthplace of King Charles VI, son of Mary Queen of Scots.
King Charles became ruler of England and Scotland and moved th England. He returned just once to this palace and they did a lot of work to "tart it up" for him but he left soon afterwards. So the Garrison staff used the rooms instead.
As we exited the Royal Apartments and went outside, we noted that the queue to see the Scottish treasures had grown dramatically since we arrived. We timed that well.
Us in the courtyard outside the Crown Room and Royal Apartments.
We moved on to check out the Great Hall which was nearby. Di was singing "Happy Birthday" as the Hall is 500 years old this year.
Impressive...we liked it.
This guy looks like he is ready to go fighting... Maybe...
"Pistol art". These pistols triggered visions of old times gentlemen's duel at dawn...
This is the key to the Edinburgh Castle, presented to various visiting royalties and dignitaries, the last 5 or 6 medallions are for visits from Queen Elizabeth II.
More to see... this part of the castle was where Prisoners of War were kept. No, not this guy, he was not part of the exhibition.
The PoW seemed to have slept wherever there was space including on top of each other in hammocks. We didn't think that they would have received visits from ladies such as the one to the left.
This ship was built by a French prisoner of war.
We moved outside again to check out the grounds a bit more. The castle ground's footprint is surprisingly large because it takes the equivalent of a small town to support it. It is also on top of an amazing crag and as such has great views in every direction. Looking north behind Di.
This guard post triggered old habits Hans thought were long forgotten.
We moved around Edinburgh Castle's perimeter and took photos in the various directions. This is looking North again over the Firth of Forth.
And East...
Looking south east over the site of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo with Arthur's Seat (the old volcano) in the background.
Now South...
And finally West...it definitely was windier from the west...
After close to 3 hours of exploring Edinburgh Castle, we were "castled" out and decided that a cuppa would be appropriate. We wandered out, passed Princes Park and north to Castle Street where we had a cuppa at Starbucks.
The cafe's interior walls were unusual, but with Di in front of it made for an interesting colour scheme so a photo had to be taken. Coffee though was not so good. One type of filter coffee only while in the US there would be around 4 types. And the coffee didn't taste that fresh either. Oh well...
We wandered back to our apartment via Rose Street, which looked really nice with restaurants, including a Jamie Oliver's Italian, bars and coffee shops. We are running out of time...
We stayed home for the evening as we knew that the next couple of nights would be full on. We also did a bit of research of what to do from Thursday onwards when we have to leave the apartment, which took a long time (the BT wifi here is very slow).
Hiring a car in Newcastle Upon Tyne seemed to be a lot cheaper than to hire it in Edinburgh so that's what we did but we still booked train tickets back to Newcastle (about 90 minutes away). We also looked into accommodation for the first couple of nights and booked the first night. We keep forgetting that this is peak period for British holiday makers so a hunt for a reasonably priced place took a while - a good thing we had no clear destination in mind. We adapted based on price.
Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner and a couple of loads of washing later and it was time to say good night.
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