Kellie and I had purchased tickets ahead of time to visit Edinburgh Castle (a wise move if you ever plan to go), so our appointment was at 1:00 PM. Because we were hanging around on the Royal Mile well before that, we noticed that the ticket booth closed around noon. They were sold out for the day. Still, as we entered the castle at 1, anywhere from 400 to 700 people were standing outside of the entryway. Some were taking pictures, others seemed to be waiting to get in. I don't think most of them knew that you had to have a ticket and that the tickets sold out before noon.
Above is a shot of the entrance to Edinburgh castle, guarded by two of its favorite heroes. On the left is Robert the Bruce, the King of Scots from 1306-1329. His defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314 gave the Scottish people independence from England. On the right is William Wallace, whose revolt against Edward I, called "Longshanks," began the War for Scottish Independence. Wallace, by the way, never saw one day of Scottish Independence as he was dragged to death behind a horse in the Tower of London in 1305. It is highly unlikely that he was shouting, "Freedom!" as his head bounced on the cobblestones. According to various other things that I read while in Scotland, Wallace never wore a kilt and never painted his face blue. The Scottish Kilt or "Big Wrap" (feileadh mor) was not even a thing until the late-sixteenth century. That doesn't stop street actors from portraying William Wallace with their faces painted blue and wearing a kilt. To heck with historical accuracy and your most famous historical monument!
Above is the close-up of the William Wallace statue dressed and armed as Wallace would have been dressed and armed rather than how Mel Gibson would have him dressed and armed. Apparently, he was actually a rather tall man. Kellie asked a local why there wasn't more William Wallace stuff in Edinburgh and Scotland. The guy said that Hollywood had made Wallace its big hero, but Scotland preferred the guy who actually defeated the English, which was Robert the Bruce, who is portrayed as an easily manipulated traitor in Braveheart. Go figure!
St. Margaret's Chapel was built in her honor by her fourth son David I around 1124. People originally that it was built in her lifetime (1045-1093), but the architectural style is too late. It is the oldest surviving building in the castle and in Edinburgh. How can it be the oldest building in Edinburgh Castle? In 1314, when Robert the Bruce recaptured the castle from the English, he destroyed every single building in it except for St. Margaret's Chapel. I was a bit disappointed to find out that all of the stained glass windows that I photographed and placed below were done in the 20th century based on reports of what the original glass looked like. When your castle is being shot at by cannons all the time, it is tough to keep stained glass around, I suppose.
Next is the William Wallace window. Again, no kilt!
St. Columba, the warrior saint, is said to have spread Christianity from Ireland into Scotland.
I don't remember what the following box was supposed to have contained, but it is a very nice box.
The next couple of pictures are of actual pages from St. Margaret's Gospel book. Apparently, she was fluent reader of Latin. The rest of St. Margaret's Gospel book is housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Oh, boy! Next is a picture of Kellie as we stepped into the prison. According to the plaques on the wall, the prison at Edinburgh housed prisoners up until the end of World War II.
The following picture explains its own history, but it seemed awfully strange to me to put a plaque on the wall in 1911 about a woman who died in 1560. Keep in mind again that Edinburgh Castle had been fired upon by cannon many, many times throughout the ages. Buildings were often destroyed and rebuilt. It just seems odd to put up a memorial nearly 400 years later for a person of relative non-importance.
Kellie probably has a hundred more pictures from inside the castle, but I am not the prolific picture taker that she is. I tend to take more pictures of things that I find curious.
I do have one more picture from inside the castle grounds in a newer part of the castle itself. Notice the electric light at the bottom. The castle wall, however, is one of the oldest parts of the wall. Note how it is built into the rock.
After we finished our tour of Edinburgh Castle, we eased and edged our way through the massive crowd on the Royal Mile down through a narrow stairwell onto Victoria Street where we ate at Bertie's Proper Fish and Chips. To this point, our dining experiences in Britain had not been stellar, but this meal was pretty good. Kellie had fish and chips, and her fish was very good this time. We had both eaten fish and chips on our first day in London, and hers was undercooked and barely edible that day. Mine had just been okay, like something you might get at Long John silver. However, Bertie's knew how to get the fish crisp without making it hard and the meat was nice and flaky. Yes! I had deep-fried haggis. I had never eaten haggis, but if this is what haggis normally tastes like, I could eat it all the time. It was a sausage packed with what seemed mostly like liver, rolled in a crust and deep-fried. Most of the organ meats within the sausage were probably sheep liver, but it tasted like beef liver with some slightly warm spices. It was delicious, I thought. I voted for this meal as the best we had on our trip. Huh! I am writing about it as if you have seen the picture already. Here it is.
You see the beer there too. It's funny. We are in Edinburgh, Scotland and all the drafts they have are American beers. I think we drank Blue Moon.
What's next? On Victoria Street, we walked by the building where James Simpson discovered the use of chloroform as an anesthetic. Here's the plaque to prove it.
The next seven pictures are all stained glass windows in St. Giles Cathedral. Each window tells its own story, but the last one had a story of how it came to be. You know how I love story-telling no matter the form the story takes. Please make sure to enlarge these pictures to look at the windows. It's not quite like being there with the sun shining behind them, but they are pretty awesome.
By the time we left St. Giles Cathedral, Kellie and I had walked nearly six miles, and we had two miles or more left to walk back to our hotel. It was only about 4:00, but we were both beat, and we had to be up fairly early in the morning to catch the train to York. I mentioned it yesterday, but we decided to have a drink on the way to the hotel before we called it a night, and so we went into a little joint and got a whisky. Here in Scotland, which of their many brands do you think we tried? None of them, we both drank Jack Daniels. Are we weird? Speaking of weird, this flyer on a bulletin board we passed caught my eye. It must be nice to live in a country where talking about various political ideas is possible. As a famous Brit once said about politics in the USA, "They have two parties. The Republicans, which are like the Conservative party in Great Britain, and the Democrats, which are like the Conservative party in Britain." I don't know if Marxism is an idea that works, but at least in Scotland, they will discuss it.
I will be back tomorrow or the next day with pictures and words from our favorite place on the whole trip, York. See you then.