All expectations of what I thought Scotland would present us were blowin’ out of the water. Edinburgh is simply magical!
Our VRBO was 15 minutes from downtown with a bus stop at our front step. It has been our best location to date without actually being downtown (not sure if I would enjoy staying in the city centre just for the noise and all). Once entering Old Town, the heart of Edinburgh you are whisked away into another world: charming buildings, colourful fronts, historic buildings perched on cliffs and an atmosphere of awe from all those involved. Just magical. I guess magical is what J.K. Rowling thought also. Edinburgh IS the place where she created the Harry Potter series. You can’t help but think, a game of Quidditch is going to go zooming over your head.
Arthur’s Seat was my favourite spot. 823′ above sea level it was quite the hike. Having numerous options, we followed purple…the hardest route. It was steep and the kids got scared at different points. The Mountain Goat (Kinnon) crushed it until we got to the top. It was crazy windy and he thought (rightfully so) he was going to get blown off. Baby Panda (Kadyn) was pretty timid the whole time. Crawling on all fours (like a baby panda) navigating the “sketchy” parts. Once at the peak, we had the best view in all of Edinburgh (the highest part of the city). The story of Arthur Seats (how I remember it): there was once a dragon that lived on this cliff, terrifying and destroying the community below. The dragon kept eating all their sheep with an insatiable appetite and blowing fire with devasting destruction. But it kept eating and eating and got fatter and slower, eventually, he laid down on this cliff and never woke up. The Scottish people use this story to 1) have people stay away from this area, as it is an extinct volcano; 2) a lesson for children to know that wanting more and more isn’t a good thing and leads to a life of uselessness. Either or, it’s a story that stuck.
Lastly, The Real Mary King’s Close. First off, a close is just another word for an alley or narrow, a place between two buildings. It was odd for women to have closes named after them at this time (the 1600s). Mostly men with power but she owned a number of shops on this close so she held some power. During the mid-1700s, they decided to build an entirely new market on top of the already present houses. Knocking off the roofs and making a level building surface for the large buildings above. Hence, creating a “hidden” underground city. Some people did continue to live in this underworld but not many. It was used more as storage. Most of the history came from the years prior, during the spread of the Black Death. With over 16 people living in one small room, it jumped (literally, as it came from fleas) from one person to the next, killing half the population of Edinburgh in short order. If you were found to have black wounds, you were sent to quarantine for 6 weeks where they would cut off the dead skin, soak it in vinegar and salt and seal (burn) the wound. The doctors looked like ravens (large leather masks), as ravens were thought of as holy creatures, hanging around graveyards protecting the dead (unlike, what we think now of ravens). The large beaks of the masks acted like an air freshener, having the ability to stuff the space with herbs and spices making the area surrounding them better. You can imagine how terrible the smell of rotting and burned flesh would be.
A short post turned into a history lesson. Fitting for the history teacher I guess, but we are quickly approaching London, England. Wish us luck in the city called “The Big Smoke.”
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