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Angela and I travelled to Scotland in late November for the Ritchie-Mowbray wedding. It was a great excuse to take a little holiday.
We arrived in Edinburgh the morning of the 23rd and took the double decker from the
airport to our hotel in Edinburgh's Old Town. We chose a hotel not far from
the Edinburgh Castle, so we could tour the Old Town and neoclassical New Town
on foot. The castle was our first stop (some more on that below), followed by a stop at
a kilt weaving factory (a.k.a. tourist trap).
Edinburgh's Christmas festival was kicked off Thursday night with a lighting ceremony, so we walked down to the Princes Street Gardens and explored the German Christmas Market.
We met our friends Beth and Paul Strickland later that evening at a bar in New Town. It was quite blustery and rainy - but not a
hard rain - more of a constant drizzle. It didn't seem to phase the locals, though.
Friday morning we walked the "Royal Mile" down the spine of the ridge between the Castle and
Holyrood Palace.
When built, the Palace replaced the royal residence at the castle. It
was, as you might expect, a little less drafty than the castle up the hill. We toured Mary King's Close - a hidden warren of narrow streets dating to the
1600s with houses on either side up to seven stories high. In 1753,
the Royal Exchange was built on the site. The upper houses were knocked down and portions of the lower sections were kept and used as foundations. The close
was forgotten, but recently re-discovered. The tour provided a fascinating glimpse into medieval life, including the horrors of the plague. The close
is also supposedly one of the most haunted locations in Edinburgh.
After touring the Royal Mile down to the Palace, we walked up to the Observatory on Carlton Hill, home to several Greek-inspired monuments and terrific
views of the city.
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We met Paul and Beth at the bus station at 2:00. Paul and I took the bus back to the airport to pick up our car. Paul first had the pleasure of driving the narrow
streets on the left side with a left handed manual shift while I navigated. I drove later in the trip from Glenrothes back towards Edinburgh. The most difficult part was
using the blinker. If we could signal by turning on the wipers, we'd be all set. We travelled to Glenrothes in the Kingdom of Fife and checked into our hotel,
where I bumped into Geoff Pike. Geoff joined us at the British Pub & Restaurant near the hotel where we had some "Great British Food", or as Geoff more aptly phrased
it, "Food from Great Britain". Joking aside, the food was actually quite good.
The Balbirnie House was a perfect venue for Lucy and Mow's wedding. It was truly a fairy tale wedding and an unforgettable day. The boys from the states all
donned kilts and had grown beards for the event.
On Sunday we drove back towards Edinburgh via Stirling, where we visited the William Wallace Monument. The first thing I learned is
that William Wallace looks uncannily like Mel Gibson! The cheesy Mel Gibson FREEDOM! statue in the parking lot aside, the
monument and museum were quite good. The views of the Scottish countryside from the tower were fantastic. The narrow winding staircase
induced a little vertigo, despite being enclosed. I have a hard time believing something like this would be open to the
public in the states due to liability. On the way back to the car, we saw a couple of rather hyper young boys with toy swords climbing about the Mel
Gibson statue. Angela, ever the antagonizer, told the boys to "say FREEDOM!". The youngest boy looked at her like she was nuts, but the older boy kept
yelling, "say FREEDOM, say FREEDOM"! It was pretty funny, but I think you had to be there.
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