Tracy and I went to Edinburgh, Scotland, during the last week in April. Our flight arrived at 8 am and we couldn't check into the hostel until 2, so we had tea and croissants at the Elephant House Cafe, where JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books.
View of Edinburgh Castle from the Elephant House Cafe.
City landmarks
Street performer
View from our hostel - we were in a prime location
After breakfast we went souvenir shopping on the Royal Mile. On a shelf at Oxfam, I found a book called Rochester, as in Rochester, MN. After a nap at the Castle Rock Hostel, where we stayed for 2 nights, we went out for a sushi supper.
Then we went on the Auld Reekie Ghost Tour of the underground vaults of Edinburgh. Our guide said that there were a lot of witch trials in Edinburgh in the 1700s. Apparently the term "saved by the bell" originated around this time because people were often buried alive (had the Plague, no coroner to pronounce people dead) and so rich people were buried with a bell above ground and a string attached to their wrists so if they woke up in a coffin, they could be dug up.
Spitting on the heart for good luck - all the locals do it. The heart used to be on the door of the prison that stood on this spot. People spat on it back in the day to show their contempt for the prisoners and tax collection administration inside.
The underground vaults were the scariest part of the tour. When ghost-hunting shows come to Edinburgh, this is where they go. Tracy and I held hands the entire time because we were freaking out. In the last room there was a big puddle in the middle of the floor, and the guide turned off her flashlight because she said it always goes out inside this room anyway. Tracy didn't want to go in because she was really scared, but the guide said everyone had to come in for "safety purposes." She told us the story of a big fire that happened in Edinburgh in the 1700s-1800s-ish. People remembered that there were vaults under the bridge and seeking refuse, they piled into the rooms. For some reason, they closed the door to this room and the oxygen started to get used up and the rock walls and ceiling got really hot. In the next few days when they were going through the vaults to rescue people, they found over 100 people dead in this room. That's why they think this room has the most paranormal activity and why a poltergeist (collection of evil energy) haunts this room. As we were getting more freaked out, someone in a robe jumped into the room and scared us. And we screamed. Overall, it was an exciting tour.
Our hostel was medieval-themed.
View from our room
The next day we took a free walking tour of the city. Our guide told us the story of Deacon Brodie, an "upstanding" member of Edinburgh society who was a locksmith. He lived a double life as a thief because he was able to make copies of the keys that people brought to him and then rob them later. He was the inspiration for
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which was written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson.
Yet another bagpipe player on the streets of Edinburgh
On our tour we saw the inspiration for JK Rowling's Hogwarts: George Heriot's School, which was founded by a philanthropist as a school for orphans, but is now a prestigious (and expensive) private school in Edinburgh, although it still has a few students who are orphans..
Greyfriar's Kirk (cemetery)
George Mackenzie is buried here, and he was infamous for persecuting the Covenanters, a political group in Scotland that refused to recognize the King of England as the head of their church. They were kept in the Covenanters Prison in Greyfriar's Kirk (just some walls and gates - no roof) and many people died in there because of the cold. It is believed that the poltergeist that haunts the Mausoleum is the spirit of Mackenzie after his coffin was disrupted by a homeless man. People who went inside the Black Door Mausoleum were sometimes attacked by this spirit and came out with bruises and cuts. Because of this, the Edinburgh City Council locked the door and the general public is not allowed inside.
The most haunted place in Edinburgh: the Black Door Mausoleum
The grave of Tom Riddle - young Voldemort from Harry Potter - is a real grave of a real person who lived in the 1800s.
Our tour concluded in Princes Street Gardens with a spectacular view of Edinburgh Castle.
After this tour, I saw the Sir Walter Scott Monument and visited the Writer's Museum on Lady Stair's Close, which had artifacts from the lives of Scottish writers Sir W. Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Robert Burns. Later that evening, Tracy and I made pasta and broccoli in our hostel's kitchen.
On our last day in Scotland, we went on a 12-hour bus tour of the Scottish Highlands. We saw the castle used in filming
Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail - Doune Castle. The real one!! Most of the movie
Braveheart was filmed in the region, too.
Our first stop was to get coffee and see Hamish, the Highland cow that is very photogenic (obviously).
Me and Tracy at the Three Sisters Mountains (so named because they are similar-looking and close together)
You know the scene in the movie Made of Honor when the Range Rovers are driving to Collin's Scottish castle? We drove on that road. And Hagrid's hut in the Harry Potter movies is shot in the region close to the Three Sisters. We stopped for lunch in Fort William and this one of the stops of the Jacobite train when it carries passengers around the Inverness region. This is the train that used as the Hogwarts Express.
The highlight of our tour was a boat trip on Loch Ness. It was really cold and windy on the top of the boat, so we went downstairs into the enclosed part of the boat. The guide talked about the monitors down here that show a sonar picture of the bottom of the lake, which is really deep.
The water looks black because it's over 700 feet deep in some spots and the soil in this area has a high concentration of peat. Loch Ness contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales combined (if you trust the accuracy of Wikipedia).
Nessie!
I told you it was windy that day.
Our tour guide showed us a picture of Nessie on his camera. He said he's seen it 5 times in his 30 years of working on the boat, but he also thinks there is more than one creature, because otherwise how would it have survived to be so old? Exactly.
Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness
These yellow flowers were all over the road sides of Scotland - it reminded me of the bountiful yellow daffodils in Ireland.
This is Blair Castle, the seat of the Dukes and Earls of Atholl. As in "little baby Atholl."
Scotland was one of my favorite places to visit this semester and when I go back, I want to see Sean Connery's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery (it was closed for an installation when we were there). There is also a mountain close to Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat that I want to climb when I go back to Scotland.
