Dunedin of the North

Edinburgh, Scotland
25 June 2008

We're just back from three days in Edinburgh, which was a last-minute and very fun change to our travel plans. 

Much fun as it was tour guiding Mum and Dad through Vienna and Prague, I was secretly dreading trying to navigate them through Madrid in our planned trip to Spain in week 3, a city (and country) I'd never been to. Fortunately, on the train on the way to Luton Airport for our Vienna flight, Dad commented that he loved travelling by train, and that he wouldn't mind a trip to Edinburgh for a few days. 

Apparently when Mum and Dad did their big tour of the British Isles in 2005, they had a disappointing couple of days in Edinburgh - a city they'd looked forward to seeing. Their hotel was out of the city, it rained for the two days they were there, and when they opted not to go on an overpriced haggis dinner evening, they were left to their own devices in the rain for most of the day, with their only view of Edinburgh Castle seen from through a rainy window at a local Starbucks. Since then, they'd been keen to go back, especially since I've been raving about how great Edinburgh is ever since I worked there for the Fringe Festival back in 2003, and have visited it regularly ever since.

I was about to open my mouth in protest that they would dare to change a trip I'd spent weeks organising (including a long and painful correspondence with our hotel to try and get the room booking confirmed), and I think the speech bubble with "You annoying old farts" was almost in the air, and then I realised this would be a lot easier to organise, and probably more fun. We'd also avoid having to go through airport security, which seems to be disastrous for Mum, who sets off the metal detectors every time she goes through, and regularly gets patted down by scary looking female security guards with moustaches. Edinburgh was much less easy to get to, although there may still be a risk of women with moustaches. 

Edinburgh has a special place in my affections, largely because of the three very fun months I spent there in 2003, but also because of its similarity to Dunedin, my New Zealand university town.



Dunedin was, in fact, built by Scottish expatriates to resemble Edinburgh, and has the same street names, a river called the Leith, a similar geographical positioning close to a harbour, and the same relaxed "university town" ambiance. The Scots influence is still strong in Dunedin, which has a statue of the poet Robert Burns in the Town Square, a mostly Scots or Irish descended population, and annual displays of ridiculousness with men in tartan kilts dancing around swords and throwing haggis around the room. It seemed like the perfect place to take Mum and Dad - only five hours train from London, reassuringly familar, and with everything easily and centrally located around the main boulevard of Princes Street. 

After our Hotel from Hell experience in Prague, I took the liberty of spending more of Dad's money and booking them into a nice centrally located hotel on Princes Street, the Old Waverley, which was charmingly furnished in old-lady friendly florals, had great views of the Scott Monument, the Princes Street Gardens and the city scape, and had some of the friendliest hotel staff I've come across for our whole Eurotrash excursion.



Mum was happy that the room had a kettle and teacups to make a cup of tea (you have no idea how many times I've heard about the horrors of their luxury 4-star hotel in Los Angeles which Had No Kettle!), Dad was relaxed because we were staying in the central city and could get to and fro easily, and I was happy because I was staying at a friend's place around the corner and could have a snore-free sleep. 

We got into Edinburgh on a sunny Monday afternoon, and Edinburgh was looking spectacular. The railway station is right in the centre of town, and takes you out into a view of the city and the Princes Street Gardens, with Edinburgh Castle looming on the hill. 

We checked in, and I took Mum and Dad for a stroll along the main drags of the city - George Street, which is flanked on either end by St Andrew's Square and Charlotte Square, down pedestrianised Rose Street, and then down through the Princes Street Gardens. 

Mum and Dad were particularly impressed with the new square built next to the Royal Scottish Academy (more on that later).

We headed back to the hotel for a very nice dinner at the hotel restaurant, and I headed back to the flat for a nice long nap. Mum said that she couldn't sleep, but got up in the night and looked out the window to see the whole of central Edinburgh lit up (as with Vienna, they backlight the buildings with spotlights for dramatic effect), like a big Christmas tree. 

Tuesday was our big sightseeing day. After such glorious weather the day before, Mum was certain that we'd get sun on Tuesday, but the weather forecasts promised rain. Sure enough, it was dour and grey in the morning, and threatened rain all day - but fortunately for us, never did.

After a quick coffee at Caffe Nero, we hopped on a tour bus which gave us unlimited 24 hour hop-on hop-off access all around the city. We had a great tour guide on the first ride around, who took us up to Edinburgh Castle, into the Old Town, out to Holyrood Palace (one of Queenie's residences, one-time haunt of Mary Queen of Scots) and up to Calton Hill and into the New Town.



Edinburgh is roughly divided into the Old Town (the side the Castle is on, which was inhabited some 500 years before the time of Alexander the Great) and the New Town ("New" being relative, as it was developed in the 1700s, with smart 18th century neo-Grecian architecture). 

Throughout the day, the tour guides were very well-schooled on local history, full of folklore about the goings on and grisly demise of graverobbers Burke & Hare, the visit of the flatulent pie-eating Prince Regent, and plenty of pitch-black Scottish humour -the architect of St Andrew's Church, one guide said, built the church circular so that the devil would have no hiding place, but the locals suspected it was built circular so that Scotsmen couldn't hide when the collection plate came around. 

After our first lap around the bus route, we headed for the Castle. It started spitting with rain when we queued to get our tickets, but undeterred in true hardy Scottish spirit, we pressed on, and joined a walking tour around the Castle with another funny, tartan-trouser wearing tour guide (Edinburgh seems to be full of them, and their wives apparently all work in department stores, terrifying tourists into buying over-priced tartan scarves). 

Mum and Dad loved the Castle - Dad particularly, who walked up the (steep) hills to see the lookout over the city or up to St Margaret's Chapel and the gun ramparts with more speed and enthusiasm than ever before. Like Prague Castle, it's a walled city that's been added to over successive generations of royal inhabitants, and yet much less opulent than the castles of Europe - it's still a rugged, unadorned war fortress and still used as a military barracks. Despite the spartan surroundings, we were very impressed by the presentation of the Castle, the helpfulness of the staff and (a crucial winner or loser in any tourist attraction) the cleanliness of the loos. 

We stayed around till 1pm to hear the daily firing of the cannon (an old custom to ensure that locals and fishermen can tell the time, and a source of continual terror for unwitting American tourists), we strolled down the Royal Mile, had a haggis-free lunch at a little deli, and back onto the bus to go and visit the National Museum of Scotland, and out to Holyrood to see the magnificent peaks of Arthur's Seat and the hideousness of the new Scottish Parliament building.



One of the royals was in residence at Holyrood Palace, so we couldn't get to see inside, but we had a quick sniff through the Queen's Gallery, to see some of her booty of Italian  Renaissance paintings. (It was a little overrated, especially considering the high entrance fee, and we thought it was a bit cheeky of the old bitch to charge for entry). We didn't get any pictures of the palace, so here's a completely random photo of Mum and Dad back in the Old Town, in front of St Giles Cathedral.

Back into town for a quick snifty through a far more reasonably priced Scottish institution - the department store Jenners - and then to the hotel for dinner. 

On Wednesday morning, I joined Mum and Dad at the hotel for a stonking, artery-hardening Scottish fried breakfast, while they picked away daintily at some muesli that looked like horse feed and a bit of pro-biotic yoghurt. 

We headed back to Jenners, where I bought some new bedsheets in their sale (I always end up shopping when I go to Edinburgh, as it's so much easier to get around than in London) and Dad bought a new wheelie bag for the bargain basement price of £8, which he was very pleased with. 

Then we headed to the National Gallery of Scotland, a gorgeous Georgian pillared building containing a seriously impressive collection of European art.



Mum and Dad loved the Dutch landscape paintings (give Mum a peasant in a funny hat, a broken down peasant's shack with a thatched roof and a couple of cows, and she's in heaven) and some very beautiful still lifes in the manner of Vermeer;



a spectacularly coloured Raphael of the Madonna and Child;



and a world-class collection of Impressionist paintings by Monet, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Sargeant, Pisarro and Degas. Here's a rather nice Monet, which we thought would look quite nice in Mum and Dad's living room. Unfortunately, the going rate for a Monet, as advertised in the morning's papers, was around £40 million. Oh well.



We had a restorative cup of tea and a sticky bun in the new downstairs floor of the gallery. As the original building was constructed on wooden pillars which have been sinking for years, the gallery trustees burrowed into the earth, reinforced the pillars from below, and while they were there built an entire two new floors to the gallery, housing storage and archive areas, lecture theatres, a cafe and restaurant, an outdoor area that links to the West Princes Street Gardens, and a nifty connection to the Royal Scottish Academy Building next door. 

We headed back to the hotel to pick up our suitcases, and down the road to the railway station for our 3 o'clock train. We had a lovely sunny afternoon for our trip, and Dad got trigger happy and took lots of photos out the window. Some of them were less successful than others. Here's a particularly good one of an ugly industrial landscape, with me half-asleep and drooling in the corner.

Here's a nicer one of Berwick-on-Tweed, a lovely little village on the border with England and Scotland (officially it's English) which looks out over the eastern sea coast.

After a fast and furious tube ride back to Clapham, on a crowded Northern Line, we were home. Hoorah!