Right away, our hotel experience was not great. The first indication was when I asked the girl at the front desk about having laundry done (at this point, I'd been on the road 2.5 weeks, remember) and she said someone would have to answer my questions in the morning, since she didn't know if this hotel actually had laundry service. Um, how can reception not know what the hotel offers??? I found a form for laundry service after we got in the room, so I called the front desk to inform the girl and then ask about timing. Again, same answer: someone would have to answer my questions in the morning. Lame.
The room was the most beat up room I've ever stayed in. There was mildew in the shower. The internet didn't work. The carpet and furnishings looked ripped on. And, to top it all off, both Becca and I came away with several bug bites, and we're positive they didn't come from any other part of Scotland. We've been home for a week, and I'm still scratching these bites. I guess the lesson learned here is to stay with a reputable name, even if it costs $300-400/night (the crappy place we stayed was still pretty expensive, at like $150-200/night).
We kicked off Wednesday morning with a quick breakfast of non-breakfast sandwiches from Tesco, which is kind of like the Walmart of the UK. Unfortunately, we'd have to go back later as they didn't give me my credit card back after we bought the sandwiches and I didn't realize it until we were in our first tourist destination of the day, Edinburgh Castle. Fortunately, they had my card when we went back to the store.
Edinburgh Castle is up on a hill that is basically in the center of the city and, as such, has great views of the whole city. It was raining when we got there, which was not great, but there were still interesting things to see inside. As is the case with most castles, we were not permitted to take pictures inside most areas, so photos of the exterior will have to suffice.
The front of the castle:
Inside the main courtyard:
Room used by King James I:
Great Hall:
Inmates' quarters (the castle was formerly used as a prison):
Views of Edinburgh:
Back of the castle:
We walked backed to Tesco, took care of business, and then took a taxi to the Palace at Holyrood House, which is the royal family's official residence in Scotland. The palace was actually bigger than I was expecting, particularly since it and its grounds are right in the middle of the city.
We started off our visit with a walk through the gallery, which had a focus on Renaissance painters, particularly Dutch ones. The gallery was pretty good, and as usual, I was most interested in the oddities I came across.
Seeing a lot of these paintings makes me wonder what happened to all the symbolism people used to be into. I mean, what does a monkey symbolize for anyone today, other than perhaps stupidity? And did people not think that having babies with skeletons was kind of sick back then? Very strange.
No photos were permitted inside the palace, naturally. I'll just say that there were a lot of interesting things inside the palace, including the room and furnishings of Mary, Queen of Scots. It's well worth a visit if you're in town.
Front of the palace:
Palace courtyard:
My favorite part of this visit was the ruined abbey that's connected to the palace. As I've mentioned before, I always like the ruined places like abbeys more than the ones that are working and in good condition.
After we were done at Holyrood, we started walking up the Royal Mile again, toward the castle, which was at the opposite end of the street. We came across a Starbucks and decided to have lunch there. I'm not a big fan of eating there. You can never find a regular sandwich like "ham and cheese" there. It's always got to be something special, like ham and aged asiago cheese with roasted Italian peppers and a mint pesto sauce or something highfalutin like that. I mean, don't get me wrong--I probably enjoy creative food more than the average guy, but sometimes I just want regular, boring classics. And if you're in the mood for a classic, avoid Starbucks at all costs.
The weather started to clear up around this time, which made walking the rest of the mile very, very pleasant. For the next 24 hours, we would have lots of sunny periods mixed in with the clouds and rain, and this would make for the best weather we'd experience on this vacation.
Our next destination was the Cathedral of St. Giles, which is the largest church in the city. I liked this particular cathedral quite a bit, particularly for its liberal use of blue on the ceiling, in stained glass windows, etc. It was also nice that they allowed photography, even if I did have to pay extra for the privilege (I'm not kidding--they charged about $3.20 for a "photography permit"). Oh well--I'd rather pay than not be allowed to shoot at all.
Our next stop was an unplanned one--a museum of banking and money put on by the Bank of Scotland, called the Museum of the Mound. We originally hadn't planned on going in, but I noticed that the museum's back courtyard had an excellent view of the city, so I asked the guy at the door if I could just go in to take pictures. He said that I couldn't, but then said that the museum was free, small and worth looking around. So few things on this trip had been (or would be) free, so we decided to look around. Photos weren't permitted, but it was interested to see the history of the bank, and lots of different kids of paper and coin money from throughout Scotland's history. Not a bad way to spend 20-30 minutes.
We stopped at a nearby art museum after this (I believe it was the National Gallery of Scotland). We didn't walk through the whole thing, however, as I was getting worried about time and because they didn't allow photography. I was bummed about that, because there were lots of interesting portraits of people wearing traditional Scottish clothing (kilts, tartans, etc.) and I hadn't really seen any fine art like that before. I never was able to get a photo of any of this, unfortunately.
Random dude we saw along the way:
Our next stop was the Scott Memorial, which was erected in memory of the Scottish author/poet Sir Walter Scott. Although it looked like it would offer great views of the city, I decided not to put any further strain on my knees, and sent Becca up to the top on her own.
Becca was up there for about 30 minutes, so I entertained myself by walking around and doing a bit of street photography. There was a lot of foot traffic in this part of the city, which made for good shooting.
When Becca was finished in the memorial, we decided to take a cab to Rosslyn Chapel, which was around 7-8 miles outside of Edinburgh. You may have heard of Rosslyn, as it was featured prominently in "The DaVinci Code". Unfortunately, disaster hit when we were informed that photography was not permitted inside upon purchasing our tickets. With all of its intricate carvings and loads of unexplained symbolism, Rosslyn Chapel really is the kind of place that you want to get photos of. Major bummer.
The chapel is actually quite small and doesn't take much time to see, but it's worth having a look. We also wandered around the adjacent cemetery afterward.
Our taxi driver had warned us that we would not be able to get a taxi back to Edinburgh without calling a service, so we decided to find a place to eat and then find a way back. Our first selection wasn't serving dinner that evening (who doesn't serve dinner on a Wednesday night?), so we chose the only other thing the small town of Roslin had to offer: a pub. The food we had actually was pretty good, and the only downside to the whole affair was the awful music playing on the jukebox. At first, we thought the pub workers were just playing music they liked--crappy British dance music that was way out of character for the surroundings and clientele in the place, but then we realized it was just a jukebox playing stuff on random. Things started looking up when we heard a few recognizable tracks by bands like ABBA. Sweet.
As predicted, we did have trouble getting out of Roslin. Buses were not running regularly out of the city, and the taxi driver that had taken us to Roslin had given me his card, but wasn't picking up his phone when I called. I asked the girl working at the bar if she could help me get a cab back to the city, and it took her more than half an hour to find a service. It turns out that there was a big Bon Jovi concert going that night, and all the cabs in the city were busy with that. I mean, come on...Bon Jovi??? It's 2011, not 1987.
Roslin's main drag:
Next up: we try driving in Scotland.
No comments:
Post a Comment