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Scotland

“Local” Tours

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One of the very BEST things about having friends who live in the places you visit is the “behind the scenes” or “only locals know about…” areas!!  Since I was fortunate enough to have two fabulous friends living in Edinburgh, I was given quite a few fun tours around the city and surrounding the city!!

I was taken to Leith where the Royal Yacht Britannia is.  That is the Yacht that the Queen of England used to travel around in.  It has now been decommissioned and is only used as a tour yacht with a restaurant on board as well for those wishing to dine like a queen:)  However, the yacht does stay permanently docked.  It no longer travels around… In fact, it was due to the cost of fuel to have it sail around that prompted the Prime Minister (I believe it was Blair who did so) to decommission the yacht so that the Queen could no longer use it…  His stance was that it was too expensive for the taxpayers to keep up with.

In the bay near the Leith area there is actually a little island that was carved to look like a ship!!  This was a tactic used by the Scots to prevent people from coming into the Bay.  An approaching ship would try to sneak in, but then see an intimidating ship in the harbor just ahead and turn away… Needless to say, the “ship” was actually quite harmless, but it did it’s job!!  Clever Scots!!

Which by the way, I never really realized how many innovators are Scottish!  The list literally goes on and on of Scottish inventors!!  Among them Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) and Alexander Fleming (discovered penicillin)!!  Or maybe it has something to do with Alexander’s…. lol!!  Just joking!  But seriously the list of Scottish inventors goes on and on… Oh and a little fact to mention about Edinburgh in general, it is world renowned for medical and medicinal advances!  A ton of discoveries in the medical field that have created vaccines, medicines, antibiotics, and anesthetics have come from Edinburgh!  Quite impressive!

In any event, other areas I was driven to include the neighborhood and buildings that inspired the movie Trainspotting with Ewan McGregor.  The area has since been cleaned up a bit, but it was interesting to see nonetheless.

I was driven in style in K’s Porsche over to Queensferry, where a marvel of a bridge from an esthetic and engineering point of view is, then across the bridge to North Queensferry where the Prime Minister has a house.  Now there are actually two bridges that go across to Queensferry… One is a car/truck/general vehicle bridge (they are also in the process of building a new one just beside it) that basically looks like a mini golden gate bridge and the other more alluring bridge is the tram bridge!  That one is quite impressive from an engineering perspective for sure!!!

I was taken to an area just off the Royal Mile called Grass Market where the Edinburgh Witch Trials took place and it has the spot where the last burning of a witch occurred… and perhaps MOST importantly, I was taken to the most fun hole-in-the-wall pubs in Edinburgh for some much needed pints of beer!!!  Yum!!!  Which reminds me as well, for those wanting to travel in the UK, probably the BEST deal for food and drink is the WeatherSpoon chains… There are several around Scotland (not sure if they are in England as well) all called WeatherSpoons XYZ, meaning they all have a unique name, but the word “WeatherSpoons” is always in there so you know it’s part of the chain… Anyway, you can get a meal and a pint for like 7 pounds!!!  Just Brilliant!!

On to Arthur’s Seat & Calton Hill

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Scotland

Volcanic Formation

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Just a little quick post here on how exactly Edinburgh (and really all of Scotland) was formed as I found this to be quite interesting…

Millions of years ago the landmass that is today Scotland was actually South of the Equator which made the temperatures and terrain tropical!! Needless to say I would have been a happy camper to have lived on Scotland millions of years ago!  In any event, as the years went on Scotland migrated to its current position and during the Ice Age was struck by several glaciers quite violently that ended up creating the landscape as you see it today with numerous mountains with jagged peaks.  In addition the terrain is also littered with tons of dormant volcanos that died out during the glacier strikes.  The city of Edinburgh is in fact literally sitting on top of a dead volcano… Perhaps the correct term is still “dormant” volcano even though there is absolutely zero activity from the volcano.

It is this unique placement of the city that gives it quite a bit of character… The Edinburgh castle sits at the apex or peak of the volcano and the main street, called the Royal Mile, gently slopes down the volcano (about a mile long) to ground level where the Queen’s Palace is.  The Queen’s Palace or more correctly Holyrood Palace (aka Palace of Holyroodhouse) is the Queen of England’s official residence in Scotland.  Along the Royal Mile from the Castle to Holyrood the street is lined with shops and homes that from the inside perspective only seem 5, 6 or perhaps 7 stories tall.  However, from the valley perspective (i.e. standing on the outside of the city looking at it) the buildings seem 10-15 stories all.  This is due to the sloping of the land down to the valley and the Scots not wasting any space in how they built things!!

The historic city was once surrounded by a wall that now only has a very small remnant left, and the main city or rather historic part of the city only connected to the valley (where the rest of Edinburgh eventually spread out to) through tons of “closes” which ran from the center (the Royal Mile) down to the valley.  “Closes” were so named because they were simply narrow walkways or streets that were “close” together.  And each close was named after the activity that occurred there.  For example the fish Market close was where you would go to buy fish!  Much more on closes later… But for now, at   least you (hopefully) have a base idea on how Edinburgh was formed and a visual of how the city is situated:)  Oh, and Edinburgh has been recognized as the capital of Scotland since at least the 1500s… Just to give a base idea of how old the city is as well:)

On to Military Tattoo/Fringe Festival

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Scotland

Edinburgh: Inspiration from Afar

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I’m quite excited to write about Scotland!!  Primarily because well, since I was a kid, the one place I really wanted to travel to of all the places was Scotland!!  And though I had obviously traveled to other countries first, it was always in my mind to finally make it to Scotland, and now I was:)

I can’t really take all the credit however, because in all honesty it was an encounter I had with two people in late March/early April of this year (2014) while I was working in Key West that really inspired me to get my rear in gear and travel there!  Kevin and Evelyne… From the moment they came to my bar (which by the way I was coincidentally not even supposed to be working that night) it was like meeting kindred spirits!!  They were supposed to be in town for several days but as life takes turns sometimes, they were only able to stay in Key West for one night, and that one night they happened to wander into my place of work and sit at my bar.

The conversations that ensued and the inspiration I took from them after hearing of their adventures around the world and simply just meeting them, well needless to say they inspired me finally do what I’ve always wanted: go to Scotland!  To this day I feel indebted to them for giving me that little kick in the rear and for being the most incredible hosts anyone could ever dream for.  I miss our conversations and hanging out with them quite a bit and can’t wait for the next time we get to come together!!

Ok, enough nostalgia for now… I left London after only two nights and took the train straight to Edinburgh.  It was quite a long trip, but really it wasn’t bad at all…  Watching the scenery change from the busy bustling city to more rural areas to absolutely stunning countryside’s really made the time passing unnoticeable to me.

I ended up arriving in Edinburgh on one of the coldest and wettest days they had had a while!  But the again, Scotland isn’t really known for it’s warm and sunny weather, so really it was a proper introduction to the Country!  Funnily enough (and luckily) however, the rest of my time there really was filled with several warmish and clear sky days!  Very unlike Scotland apparently, but I really wasn’t complaining one bit!!

I was met at the train station by K&E and whisked away to K’s place and shown to my room, fit for a queen!  For the next 2 weeks or so, I stayed in Edinburgh with the company of K&E and honestly could have simply stayed forever (were it not for Scotland winters being so cold!!) and just gotten a job and rented out a flat!!  I loved Edinburgh (my Glasgow friends will hate me for saying so, lol!!) and for sure plan to get back there not only for my friends being there, but for the city itself!

There is obviously quite a lot to say about my time there, so once again I’ve divided it all up into subjects so as not to overwhelm in one post!  Happy reading!!

On To Volcanic Formation

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England

Trafalgar Square

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Here we come to another fun little story…  The man on the top of the column in Trafalgar square is indeed a man named Nelson, NOT Napoleon…  However Nelson was responsible for winning one of the battles against Napoleon.  Sadly, he also lost his life in that particular battle.  The location of the battle, as you may know (it was news to me!!) took place in Trafalgar, Egypt.

So the story goes (as told by my tour guide) that Nelson fought bravely and valiantly, and with the Royal Navy at his command was able to defeat Napoleon in the battle at Trafalgar.  When Nelson lost his life in the battle, the soldiers, well really all of the United Kingdom wanted to honor his brave acts and his victory on his behalf.  So they decided to bring his body back to England so that it could be properly buried.

However, there was one little issue… The body was on a ship in the waters near Egypt, and it would take several days to actually get back to England… So preserving the body became an interesting challenge.  No worries however, they had several barrels of whisky on board!!  And what is the best way to preserve a body??  Well, dunk it in whiskey!  So they opened a barrel of whiskey (they had 5 or 6 in all) and placed Nelson’s body inside.  They replaced the cap of the barrel and marked it so that they would know which barrel had his body inside, and which were just full of whiskey…

When the ship got back to London, they cracked the barrel labeled with Nelson’s body inside and found it to be curiously only half full of whiskey… hmmm… What happened to the other half???  I thought perhaps the body simply absorbed the whiskey up and the body would therefore be a bloated yucky mess.  However, this was not the case.  What apparently happened instead was that the crew, having been so happy at their victory decided to celebrate all the way back to London.  Along the journey they managed to run out of all the whisky (they drank up 4 or 5 barrels of whiskey on their own!!)…

So… what else were they to do after running out of whiskey yet still wanting more??  Yup, they started to drink out of the whiskey barrel with Nelson’s body inside!!  They apparently felt the best way perhaps to really honor Nelson was to literally drink from him… “eeeewwwwwwww!!!!!”  is all I have to say!!!  And, as my guide noted, it certainly gives a new meaning to the term “full bodied” when describing imbibes!!!

On to Horse Garden, PM House, Westminster & Big Ben

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