We spent our last day in Edinburgh, August 26, 2025, on a 3-hour walking tour of the city.
We were very lucky with our guide, Douglas. He had a graduate degree in geology from Oxford. He was guiding while he prepared to transition into being a Methodist minister, perhaps in the United States. He was as warm and charming as a preacher and as knowledgeable as an Oxford scholar. As he described the competing Christian sects in Edinburgh, he showed us his arm, where he had a tattoo with the Christian symbol of a fish. Sects like the Covenanters also used sacred symbols.
Edinburgh Castle is the icon of the city. On other trips, we visited the military fort and castle inside, but on this trip we just took pictures from various angles.
We walked up the Royal Mile, stopping at inns and pubs to hear stories about them. It was at the White Hart Inn that body snatchers got traveling salesmen and other transients drunk, murdered them, and sold their bodies for dissection at medical schools. Convicted killers ate their last meal and took their last drink at a pub appropriately named "The Last Drop," with rope nooses hanging in its window.
Edinburgh, in the Middle Ages, was a government-designated "market town," and public executions took place in this market square.
We heard the story of Greyfriars Bobby, whose dog stayed by his tomb for 14 years after the policeman's death.
We walked through the picturesque but crowded Edinburgh streets. and viewed the line in front of the Harry Potter Museum.
We walked through several "closes," or squares off the Royal Mile, where arches and private houses still remained from the Middle Ages.
We passed statues of Scottish notables, including this statue of the philosopher Hume, who lived during the Scottish Enlightenment.
We also stopped at the great St. Giles Cathedral, with its magnificent stone carvings and stained glass windows.
After our walking tour, Dave and I spent a couple of hours at the National Museum of Scotland. Among the many, many displays was a collection of Mary Queen of Scots artifacts, including her jewels, the statue adorning her tomb, and even a reproduction of the guillotine upon which she was executed by her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. Mary's son became James VI of Scotland and, later, James I of a united Scotland and England. James I sponsored the translation of the King James Bible.
We arrived in Edinburgh just as the annual cultural festival, "The Fringe," ended. Billboards and playbills for the festival were all over town.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment