Hello Edinburgh!

“Travelling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller” – Ibn Battuta

Getting there

It was that time of the year - our yearly visit to places far and wild, to savour new cultures and experiences. To live out a dream that we, as a family, had been dreaming about for nearly a year. 

Sorry, that was a bit dramatic, but hey we were headed for a couple of weeks to Scotland & England. It had been on our wish list for years, and summer of 2019 is when we finally set foot on the lands of our former colonial masters.

25^th April late afternoon found me, my parents and our mound of luggage at 1 Abbey hill Crescent, Edinburgh, taking in our new home. After 2 flights, a 25 minute bus ride to the city center and a 15 minute walk, and we were transported from Bangalore to the scenic city of Edinburgh for 5 paradisaical days we were sure to enjoy. Our house was quite quaint. My dad is an Airbnb fan and we nearly always end up staying in a house or an apartment rather than a hotel room, and I must admit that I too like the thrill and adventure of staying in a foreign land in a native house than in a sterile hotel room. Think about this – our ‘house’ in Edinburgh had a bedroom with loads of cupboards, a living room with a pull - out bed, a bathroom and a fully functional kitchen. Not a cramped hotel room, but a single bedroom, very comfortable house, yay!!

Bird's eye view of the scenic city of Edinburgh from the castle

We quickly deposited our clothes in the cupboards haphazardly, excited to explore Edinburgh and more importantly, have dinner. The most important road in Edinburgh is the Royal Mile. One end of the royal mile is the Edinburgh castle, the other is the palace of Holyrood House. Being the most popular street, we decided to head there for dinner. It was supposed to have a lot of eating options!

 As soon as we stepped out a gust of cold wind struck us on our face. Edinburgh was way, way, way colder than Bangalore. It would definitely take me a while to get used to this weather! We walked along the road for some time. The thrill of walking on the streets of a foreign land is inexpressible. At that time, I felt like the happiest child in the world. 😊

Tolbooth Kirk, Royal Mile. Kirk is Scottish for church.

Buying groceries was the first task to complete. Staying in Airbnb means no ‘hotel breakfast’ in the morning, you need to go purchase ingredients from the nearest shop and cook something up. We went to this supermarket called Sainsbury’s and bought yogurt, bread, eggs, fruits and a bunch of other stuff for breakfast. I always love the shopping during our trips. It gives me a weird sort of excitement when I read names of various foreign brands. I love all that stuff we got for breakfast - noodles, croissants, yogurt. With the exception of bread and egg. Did I mention, I hate bread and egg, it always give a tummy ache...

For dinner, we went to this cool fish and chips shop called Benes and bought – no prizes for guessing - 3 fish and chips. Little did we know that the portions were way way too big. We were barely able to finish two of them and we put the third one in the fridge for the next day.

So, with luck the next morning’s breakfast was bread, croissants, yogurt and fish and chips from Benes. Yes, we had quite an appetite. After figuring out how to use all the contraptions in the shower and the kitchen, we finished breakfast and finally stepped out of the house in to icy cold weather and walked over to the Edinburgh Castle.

The sun stopped playing hide and seek as we exited the castle.

Was it James or Charles or... 

Edinburgh Castle was so huge! As we visited the first few floors, I felt super interested. But truthfully speaking, after some time I got so bored. A lot of people were looking at me weirdly when I was yawning. Ya, its okay for those interested deeply in Scottish history, but for me every king looked the same. They would probably say the same thing about Indian Kings 😐). It’s either a James or a Henry or a William or a Charles. And the queens are either Catherine, Mary or Anne. Less diversity for the queens. No surprise. 

Cemetery for dogs, one of the many sights in Edinburgh Castle.

Right outside the castle, we spotted this shop called “The Boy Wizard”. Yep, you guessed it right, a shop that sold Harry Potter stuff. I was so excited; I literally sprinted down the stairs.

I was so happy when I got my own Gryffindor sweatshirt 👍👍. The place even had a real live wizarding chess model. I could have spent hours there - trying out various types of wands and posing with them - but, sadly, my parents had other plans.

Greek tour of the underground

We stopped in front of this rusty, dusty place with a sign ‘Real Mary Kings Close’ written over it. Didn’t look so great from the outside, a bit spooky to be honest. We went inside and waited for a while. Apparently, there was a guided tour to the underground life in Edinburgh that my dad had read about and thought it would be a great thing for us to go see. The tour would take us through underground streets that belonged to a lady called Mary King. In Scottish, "close" meant a narrow street. Soon two women, one in a frilly gown that made her look like she belonged to the middle ages, came up to the waiting people.

They took us to this small room and we were left with the Middle Age woman. She was Greek; I forgot her name, so let’s call her Athena for now (because that is the only Greek name I know 😁). 'Athena' had an amazing sense of humor and kept us giggling as well as captivated all throughout the tour.

The story goes like this - the rich used to live in luxurious flats with 2 or 3 bedrooms on upper floors, while the poor used to live in dirty 1-bedroom houses on the ground floors. She told us that the streets were littered with garbage and sewage all the time. The streets were less of streets and more like a open drain, very very unhygienic!  This is why the rich wanted a house in the higher floors so they could be away from all the garbage. So, basically the richer you were, the higher you lived! Thousands of rats bred in these dirty streets and was cause of the deadly plague in Edinburgh.

The room I liked the most was the plague room. Here Athena told us how people lived during the time of the Black Death, a deadly plague that ravaged through Europe, killing millions. There were models of sick people belonging to a family. The father was dead, his wife and daughter were having an incurable form of plague and the son was being cured from his plague by the plague doctor. It was a sad scene indeed.

 

Athena told us that people would hang white flags on the doors if anyone in their house had plague. On seeing the flag, the plague doctor would to go to the houses and treat the sick. The plague doctor was dressed from head to toe in black and even his face was covered with a raven mask because they thought that the mask would shoo away the spirits that caused the disease. Little did they know that because the doctor was covered from head to toe, he wouldn’t get bitten by the rats and hence was safe. It would take the medicine men in Europe many, many years to associate rats with plague.

Then we saw a room that was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a girl named Annie. Legend goes that once a tourist, who was exploring the close, walked into this empty room. She immediately felt cold and wanted to walk out of the room when she felt a hand touch her. And then she saw a little girl who told her that her name was Annie and that she was left all alone in this room because she had the plague. She was also upset because her parents had taken away her most favorite doll.

As this story spread, tourist started bringing dolls for Annie and very soon there was a mound of dolls there to keep Annie happy!  Athena told us that just the day before our visit, someone had stolen the original doll. How weird!

Athena finally took us to a room called the quarantine room where people who were recovering from the plague would stay for 6 weeks. She talked to us for some time about this and that. After that she told us that our 6 weeks were over, we were cured and now we could leave! What a witty way to end the tour, don’t you think?!

Finally the tour of Mary King's close ended. Till our last day in Edinburgh, every time we walked this spot, I would think of our amazing underground tour and all the spooky stories Athena told us!

A  bagpiper on the royal mile.

Food, finally...

After all the walking around, I was ready to drop. And on top of that, I was starting to feel really hungry. So, we paused our sightseeing for food at this small place called Frankie’s and Benny’s. I remember everything about the place, as in like everything. Let me prove it to you. As soon as you get in, there is one big step which is kind of easy to miss because it sorts blends with the tiled floor! The first time we went there, (yes, we went there again twice!), we sat in the third seat to the left of the entrance. There were two waitresses, one of them had long nails with black nail polish. I ordered a Chicken and Mushroom pasta; mom ordered a Penne Arabiata and dad a Spicy Chicken Americano pizza. 🍕 
And… the food was awesomely deliciously scrumptious. See, I remember everything about Frankie’s And Benny’s.  I will definitely remember this place for “CENTURIES” because my pasta was just heavenly! 

Next stop was an adventurous climb up Arthur's peak, more of that for later. 🌄