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Edinburgh Castle
For the first day and a half, we circled Edinburgh Castle, admiring it from outside and below. Every place seems to have its castle, but this most defensible and aloof of strongholds stands out as a place where the mighty would choose to keep themselves. | ||
 The Back of the Royal Palace from Grassmarket
The Castle was primarily a defensive position because royalty didn't like living there in peace-time because of its cold, windy location. They preferred Holyrood Palace down at the bottom of the glen. The Castle has been pridefully maintained as a very visible symbol of Scotland, so much of what we see today dates only from Georgian and Victorian times. |
 The Castle Barracks from "The Loch"
photo credit: Rochelle Elkan |
 The Royal Palace from northwest |
 Barracks from the Graveyard |
 Our "Guide Friday" |
We rode around the Castle (and the old city) in an open-top bus run by the same tour operator we used in Oxford, Guide Friday. When a Scot says "Guide Friday" it sounds like "Gay Freddie" and so herewith is a picture of Gay Freddie explaining the ins and outs of Edinburgh to us.
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Gay Freddie is a hop-on / hop-off kind of tour, but we rode all the way around and then clambered back across what's left of the loch below the Old City and came out through Parliament near the entrance to the Castle.
In keeping -- pun intended -- with the Castle's defensive mission, one enters well below the inner courtyard and Royal Palace, and continue upwards. Every step of the way could be defended by the loyal troops. A fine gate with a very businesslike portcullis bars the most obvious path up. The old entry was up a series of tall steps through a guardhouse from which hot oil and arrows could be dispensed.
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 The new entry with portcullis |
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The cannon in a third of the way in from the left of the picture (above) are the one o'clock cannons, a tradition continued from the time that the navigators on ships in Leith Harbor synchronized their timepieces by the firing of the cannon at one o'clock sharp. One of our Gay Freddies told us that the choice of one o'clock instead of the more traditional noon would be a fine reflection on Scottish economy. Why fire the cannon twelve times when once would do? |
 The Royal Palace |
The Royal Palace, at the very top of the castle, contains the "Honours of Scotland", and the reconstructed -- some say "fancifully" reconstructed -- royal apartments.
The Scots are proud of the fact that their crown jewels are older than England's, because they were able to hide them during the period when royalty was in serious disfavor. They are encased with "The Stone of Scone" which is a basalt block with symbolic meaning, proving that pride and meaning may not be connected only with richness. This seems to be an important clue to the Scots character.
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 The Honours of Scotland |  The fireplace in the Royal Dining Room |
 Fine architectural details on the Chapter House
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All of these fine buildings face the courtyard -- what a brave gathering!
One of the statues flanking the Memorial doorway
|  Chad keeping company with the other statue
Imagining them filled with courtiers, servants, and defenders (instead of tourists in rain gear) gave me a fine sense of history and place. |
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Inside the Chapter House, almost everything except the hammerbeam ceiling are fanciful reconstructions from the Victorian era, but the ceiling! Sorry it's so dark, but I wasn't even supposed to be taking pictures, and flashing would have been unthinkable. This is how you build a wide and stately roof with short timbers.
|  The Hammerbeam Chapter House roof-frame |
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I don't mean to dismiss the amazing carvings and decorations lavished on this place in Victorian and Georgian times -- they're very fine, if not so impressively old, and certainly add to the flavor of the place.
As we left the Castle, impressed and somewhat subdued, we heard the sound of a samba band. We made our way to the edge and looked down, and there was the Take Back The Streets March, followed by a raft of Edinburgh police -- a bit of modern anarchist yeast to lighten up the royal mood!
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Travel along with us! |
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© 2001-2002 by Caspar Institute. All Rights Reserved. | |
