Edinburgh Castle

The ancient city of Edinburgh, Scotland was built upon an extinct volcano.  The skyline is dominated by the Royal Mile which begins at Holyroodhouse Palace and rises a mile or so to terminate at Edinburgh Castle.  After our week hiking St. Cuthbert's Way, my friends and I removed to a small hotel in a lovely village on the Firth of Forth and made a day trip just to visit Edinburgh Castle.
Here are some photographs from that visit.

The mile-long street between the Castle and Holyroodhouse Palace is the Royal Mile.  The upper end of the street is Castlehill.

This photo was taken after we'd left the Castle - in the rain.  Hence the overcast appearance.  Typical UK weather: sun, clouds, rain, all in just one afternoon.

This is the  Esplanade - large parade ground outside the Castle gates.  In  August is the famous Military Tattoo, which we'd just missed by a few weeks.

At the (19th century) entrance are statues of Scotland's great heroes, Robert the Bruce on the left and William Wallace on the right.  The statues, I'm told, were made in the 1920s.

Far below the Castle and to the North, in the so-called New Town (really new in the 18th century), is Princes Street, now a major shopping street in the city.

Between the Castle and Princes Street lies Princes Street Gardens, where once was a lake.  Beyond in the far distance is the "Kingdom of Fife" and between there and Edinburgh is Firth of Forth.  A firth, I'm told, is a river estuary.  I hope that's true.

This very high arch connects the Scottish War Memorial (left) with the Royal Palace (right).  

This palace was the residence of the Stewart kings and queens in the 15th & 16th centuries, the birthplace of King James VI in 1566 (later James I of England), and the home of the Scottish crown jewels.

The facade of the Royal Palace.  Together it forms a great square, with the Great Hall, the  Scottish United Services Museum, and the Scottish War Memorial.

Inside the Great Hall, a beautiful 15th century hall lined with medieval weapons, we found this quartet wearing period clothes and playing period music on period instruments.  This happens only once monthly; we were very lucky.

The walls of the Great Hall are lined with weapons like these swords and claymores, also with shields, pistols, mortars, pikes, axes, and some several suits of armor.  Also with the coats of arms of many clans.

These are the steps into the Scottish  War Memorial, where no photographs were allowed.

St. Margaret was a queen of  Scotland in the 12th century, known for her  virtue, goodness, and generosity.  She's a patron saint of Scotland (which seems to have more than one), and this window is in the very tiny St. Margaret's Chapel

The building with the zig-zag roof is now a restaurant, and to the right of it is the famous One O'Clock Gun - - not 12:00 or any other hour but 1:00 pm to inform pre-wristwatch citizens of the hour.  Scots have a reputation for frugality: one gun shot is cheaper and easier than booming away 12 times.  

The Castle is very hilly and rocky; many of the connecting paths are steps and many are curved, like this one.

Inside the Casemates is this section recreating where prisoners of war lived - from the Seven Years War up through the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.  Note:  During the American Revolution, colonial captives were not well treated because they weren't considered soldiers but rather traitors and held as common criminals.

Barbara is trying to capture what an individual person's surroundings  were.

Prisoners of war were allotted pease, bread, cheese, and [not shown here] 2 pints of ale daily.

Uniform of a French Officer - - contrast this colorful and elegant coat with contemporary camouflage uniforms.

Emperor Napoleon's regiments carried at their head an imperial eagle, with the regiment's number at the base.  The design was supposed to be Roman.  This eagle was taken during the Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, by a Sargeant in the Royal Scots' Greys, a cavalry unit.

The Standard of the French Imperial 45th Infantry Regiment whose eagle is just above.

I very much liked reading this description of the battle scene when the Imperial Eagle was captured by the Scots Grey.

We left the Castle by passing through this, the Portcullis Gate, and into the  Royal Mile.

Night is coming; Castle is closing; we'll walk down the Royal Mile, find some place for dinner, and take the train back to the little village of Aberdour.  What a nice day it was.

Days 2 and 3 on St. Cuthbert's Way

There were many things to see - both natural beauties and manmade, and some curiosities.

Thistles may be prickly, but in a group they make a swath of gentle color on the hillsides.

 A deep footpath through quiet and shady woods.  This is Pat - she has long legs and walks fast and is usually way way ahead of me.

J.C. Douglas is very proud of his profession:   Scottish Sausage Champion 2009/10.  I guess I'd put that title on my shop as well.

No matter the size or shape, mailboxes in the U.K. all seem to be bright red.  The Post Office behind Barbara is also a convenience store where we bought some ice cream bars.

Pat is an old hand at crossing stiles and shows Sandy how it's done.

Is it the climate?  Great Britain has some of the biggest beech trees I have ever seen.   They're not so tall as in Northern Virginia, but their girth exceeds  by several times.

I wish that every long hiking day ended with a slice of very lovely and delicious cake.  This one is made with beets, not carrots.

St. Cuthbert's Way passes many abbey ruins.  This one is in the center of the town of Jedburgh.   The red and blue pennants were to mark the route of a cross-Britain multi-day bicycle race set to pass through Jedburgh after we left.

This is Monteviot Bridge, a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Teviot River.

Dere Street is the present-day name for a road originally laid out by the  Romans some 2 millenia ago.   But it is definitely no longer a "road" or "street", but a very narrow footpath through long, wet grasses.  Romans built straight roads; on the map this is straight but in fact it wiggles back and forth.  But is thankfully level.

Borders and St. Cuthbert's Way, Sept. 6-7, 2012

I took so many photographs on my September trip to the Scottish Borders.  Here are few more, from our first two days - in the town of Melrose.

The interior of Melrose Abbey, a relic of the English Reformation.

Many ancient grave markers bore the skull and crossed bones - I doubt they signified that the decedent was a pirate.

Sandy's cell phone gave her fits, so she tried the old-fashioned  kind.

EVERY fisherman's prayer - the Borders have apparently some great rivers for  salmon fishing, esp. the Tweed River.

"Full Scottish Breakfast" = eggs, mushrooms, black pudding, sausage, fried tomato, bacon,  potato scone.   I found that once was enough.  Later mornings I eliminated several items.

Looking down on Melrose from one of the Eildon Hills (which we hiked up as the first of several).

St. Cuthbert's Way

Four friends took a wonderful seven-days walk in mid September.  It was 62 miles long, through the Scottish Borders.  The route was probably an old pilgrimage route from medieval days - - we passed several former monasteries or abbeys that had been ravaged by time after Henry VIII ordered them closed in the 1540s.  We walked from West to East, from Melrose to Holy Island - from Melrose Abbey to Lindesfarne Abbey.
The walk is named after a 7th century saint. Cuthbert was a native of the Borders who spent his life in the service of the church. He began his work at Melrose Abbey. He achieved the status of Bishop, and when he died he was buried on Holy Island. He was called a saint eleven years after his death, when his coffin was opened and his remains found to be perfectly preserved.
Here's a pictorial history of the walk, which  is called St. Cuthbert's Way [SCW]:

The "official" beginning of the SCW is the churchyard gate at Melrose Abbey



This is Melrose; we spent 2 mights here - most of the towns where we stayed looked like this: 2-3 story buildings, made of stone, several centuries old, ground floor shops, flats above, narrow streets. Melrose Abbey is a popular attraction, managed by Historic Scotland (I think) and so it's a bit more crowded and up-to-date than some others.





We walked and hiked and climbed up and up.   The Eildon Hills (rather steep) were the first obstacles, not very high, fortunately.   Barbara's looking down at how small the town appears.

Salmon fisherman in the Tweed River.  The SCW follows this for about 2.5 very large bends.  It had been suggested that permits to fish the Tweed for salmon are very expensive, which may explain why the river wasn't full of fishers.

The Roman helmet signifies that we are now on Dere Street, laid out by Roman army 2000 years ago.  On the map it is a straight line of a mile or two.  In reality it wiggles and twists and is overgrown with long wet and annoying grass.  That's Pat pointing out something.



These are outbuildings from a very large estate.  They've been converted into an arts center, children's enrichment center, tea room, art gallery, visitor center.  It's called Harestanes and we enjoyed the tea room while awaiting the taxi to carry us to our B & B.

Here is what sheep do.  They munch and munch, heads down on the grass.  When one sees me, it stares, motionless.  When I raise my camera, it hightails it away.   And all the rest follow suit.  Every one of them.  All running away.

This was a milestone not to be forgotten.  It always felt like bigger hills and that the end would never come.  The prior photograph shows us struggling to keep the constant wind from tearing off hats and chilling hands.  Blessedly, the wind was at our backs.

To American ears, these names seem (to be kind) odd.  Would I choose to live in a place called Sourhope?  too depressing.  And what would be the derivation of Cocklawfoot?  At least, Belford on Bowmont would be different from, say, Belford on Tyne or Belford on Thames.

Dogs in the pub were common.  This fellow sat or lay, bored, the entire time we were there.  Pub food seemed to be fairly uniform:  steak and ale pie, fish and chips, roast lamb shank. chicken curry.  Occasionally a treat:  seared salmon; lamb loin chops.  My personal favorite was also a one-off:  Trawler pie (like shepherd's pie but with salmon, prawn, scallops).

A border without border control.  As my son pointed out "You are on the right side of the border."  And I think this was my 72nd birthday but wasn't sure.  Time didn't seem the same without clocks everywhere.



The footpath led through many tree plantations.  This pine plantation surrounded St. Cuthbert's cave, a very minor but physically large attraction.

St. Cuthbert's cave is a large "room" on the hillside, beneath monstrously big limestone boulders.  Without a flashlight, I didn't explore.  We were greeted by the Ramblers who had passed us every day (being British, they don't poke along), and who were "killing time" until time to meet their van in the next town.

To get to this point - on a chilly and damp morning-  we crossed a highway, through fields and along farm roads, across a very busy train track, a stream and then a field, and eventually here.  The end is in sight.  The causeway is to the right of the signs.  My great fear was that we would miss low tide and have to wait six hours to cross.  We made it.

In earlier years (pre-causeway) pilgrims walked across the sands, like these two.  Poles mark the way.  Somewhere out there is a "refuge" - small room elevated about 12 feet above the sand.  We did NOT walk the sands.

The village of Holy Island and our hotel - large white bldg. behind the red roofed one - are just beyond the small harbor.  The castle of Lindesfarne stands on a very high rock (part of an extinct volcano?) behind the photographer.

Here's the same harbor from the hotel's lawn, and that's the Lindesfarne Castle high atop its dark rock.  Looks forbidding, doesn't it.

This bus runs once weekly in September and every 10 days in the next six.  The only time it runs daily is in Tourist Season.  It took us to Berwick where the next adventure began with buying a bus ticket in a train station.  It seems the train doesn't run on weekends because of track work (Oh, shades of Washington's Metro!) 

And that was the end of our too-fast visit to the Scottish Borders. I'd love to go back and revisit some of the towns, the moors and, yes, even the hills. It was very tiring but also very exhilarating and I have good feelings about having done this.

 

Pay no attention . . .

. . . to the weatherman.  I had planned on hiking today with friends, my usual Tuesday hike.  We were going to one of my favorite places:  Sugarloaf Mountain, near Dickerson, Maryland.  I always used to get lost when going there, until I realized that the local Interstate Highway (I-270) was the best bet. 
Now Joe likes New Orleans and Mobile, both places he knew well when we were young.  And he always gets eager when some hurricane looks to threaten those places.  So this summer, this week, there's hurricane Isaac and there's also the Republican party having a big nominating convention in Tampa, down in Florida.  And there were fears that Tampa might be adversely affected by Mr. Isaac.  Sunday and Monday Joe put on his channel-flipper gloves and likely did not watch anything more than weather reports, some on site, some off site, looking for word of New Orleans and Mobile.   After all, this week is the 7th anniversary of hurricane Katrina. 
What has this to do with Tuesday hiking?  I know not why the local weather reporters got so crazy, but they were predicting showers, sunshine, thunderstorms, partly cloudy - - not a one of them consistent with another.  And so this morning, bright and early - - well, not bright.  That was the problem.  It was cloudy, and it was humid, and I dithered around and finally decided.  If I were on a Through-Hike on the C & O Canal or if I were hiking on one of Scotland's lovely long-distance footpaths, I would soldier on through rain, wind, sleet, whatever.  But I'm not there and not doing that.  And rather than drive 35 miles just to walk in what might turn into a thunderstorm, I decided to stay home.  Particularly after Pat reminded me of the time years ago when 4 of us arrived at Sugarloaf's West Parking Lot just in time for a deluge to drop upon us and turn the steps to the summit into a waterfall. 
No walking today.  But how silly that was.  Yes, the early morning was cloudy and humid, but the day progressed (as it always does), and became a bright, sparkling day with shadows so crisp and sharp you'd think they were cut with scissors. 
So I got things ready for the Scotland trip next Wednesday.  Not quite a wasted day.  But no walking today.  How'm I supposed to get my lower extremities ready for walking 7-12 miles/day if I'm not doing some of that now?  Well, there are still 7 days to go.