Chapter 5 - Edinburgh and the Royal Military Tattoo

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

Edinburgh and the Royal Military Tattoo

We arrived at Waverly Station in Edinburgh at about 3:30 pm and decided to walk to our hotel, The Fraser Suites. According to the map it was about a five-minute walk away. If you have ever been to Edinburgh, however, you are well aware that Edinburgh is full of hills, winding cobblestone streets and stairs – lots and lots of stairs. We were directed to take a “close” that basically would come out just a few yards from our hotel. Edinburgh is also full of closes. These are alleyways or shortcuts to and from different levels of the city. In medieval times, these were private paths that allowed owners to get to their individual plots of land

off the main road. The climb up The News Steps was arduous. I don’t know if we would have made the final steps without the aid of two lovely Scottish (we think) gentlemen who took pity on us and carried our luggage up that last flight (Photo 5 - 1).

Fraser Suites was ideally located (other than the task of getting to it) on St. Giles Square just off The Royal Mile and near St. Giles Cathedral (Photo 5 - 2). The Royal Mile is at the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town and runs from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Its name comes from its tradition as a processional route for kings and queens for the last 500 years. We plan to visit Holyroodhouse when we return to Edinburgh later in our trip.

We intentionally arranged to only be in Edinburgh for two nights because of The Fringe Festival that runs for three weeks in August. This Festival is the largest celebration of arts and culture on the planet. It includes theater, comedy, dance, musicals, music, magicians, and more. Everywhere we turned especially on The Royal Mile we could hear bagpipes or other music, listen to vocalists, watch someone

juggling knives, doing magic and more. Edinburgh is also known for it's whimsical statutes of giraffes everywhere (Photo 5 - 3). While it’s fun it also means Edinburgh is extremely crowded. Unfortunately, the trash collectors (the bin men) were on strike so it’s also very dirty with piles of trash everywhere. We are glad we are coming back to Edinburgh for three weeks in October to hopefully experience a quieter and cleaner city. We’ve saved a lot of sightseeing for when we return.

Even with the above, Edinburgh is a beautiful and interesting city. After checking into our hotel and resting for a bit, we ventured out to walk around and get some dinner. We ate on the rooftop terrace at the Cold Town House. This

restaurant was in Grassmarket, a historic market filled with restaurants and shops and located directly below Edinburgh Castle. We had a good view of the outside of the Castle from the terrace (Photos 5 - 4 and 5 - 4A).

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

We survived our first night in a hotel without air conditioning. The temperature has cooled, and it was in the low 60s, upper 50s at night. With our windows opened a bit it was pleasant. We awakened to a gentle rain which lasted til mid-day. After breakfast in August37, a small restaurant attached to the hotel, Sarah washed clothes in the hotel laundry.

After the rain stopped, we walked parts of the Royal Mile poking into other closes and interesting areas. We went inside St. Giles Cathedral which is a parish church of the Church of Scotland (Photo 5 – 5). The current building was begun in the 14th century with alterations and extensions in subsequent centuries. It’s closely associated with Scottish history, including John Knox, who served as the church’s minister after the Scottish Reformation.

We ate a late lunch at Ondine, a seafood restaurant just off The Royal Mile. Bruce had oysters on the half shell and fried oysters as appetizers (with Sarah sampling both of course) and a bowl of fish stew. Sarah had lemon sole with brown butter and capers and a small salad. Everything was delicious. After lunch Bruce rested and Sarah walked as per usual. Sarah went down those same steps through the close and walked through Princes Street Gardens which are two large adjacent public parks in the center of Edinburgh (Photo 5 – 6). She came up on Princes Street which is considered part of New Town Edinburgh. Even from a distance you can see the Victorian gothic monument to Sir Walter Scott which was built in the 1840s (Photo 5 – 7). She

explored Waverly Station, bought our tickets for the Edinburgh to Glasgow trip and experimented with another route up to our hotel - while it was steep it was more gradual and did NOT include steps.

We headed out to get in the queue for the Royal Military Tattoo which started at 9:00 pm. The performances were on the Esplanade, a large flat area built in 1753 just outside the walls of The Edinburgh Castle. Stadium-like bleachers rose 25 rows from the Esplanade on the longest two sides as well as seating above the entry to the Esplanade facing the Castle. We were sitting high up facing Edinburgh Castle just below the VIP section so we had great seats (Photo 5 – 8). It’s hard to describe the show – thousands of performers, music, special

effects which basically made the castle part of the show, and fireworks. Many countries were represented including the U.S. Army Field Band and the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard Drill Team. Before the show even started the sky put on a show at sunset over the Castle (photo 5 –9). We’ve included a couple of pictures of the special effects just to give you a taste although it's hard to do it justice (Photos 5 -10 and 5 - 11). Bruce has found a link to the finale on YouTube that you can watch if you’d like. https://m.youtube.com/watch?y=cRDpRUimdjY. Suffice it to say, the show was spectacular!

Thursday, August 25, 2022

We walked around just a bit on Thursday morning and ate breakfast at a little café called the Zebra Café. We tried a couple of others that were supposed to open at 9 am, then 9:30, then 10 – we think they have a relaxed view of opening times. Sarah had a breakfast roll with an egg and bacon. Bruce tried the veggie breakfast – the worst meal he’s had so far on our trip.

We checked out and headed for the train station to catch our train to Glasgow. Fortunately, it was all downhill on the new route Sarah had scouted out so it was pretty uneventful. We caught the 11:27 am train and made it to Glasgow around 1:00 pm. Here’s a picture of one of the station signs with the Gaelic spelling underneath (Photo 5 – 12). There’s also a noticeable difference in Scotland which is a lot greener than the drought-stricken England (Photo 5 – 13). We had a very chatty and helpful taxi driver to our hotel, Frazier Suites of Glasgow. We spent a little time getting our bearings and then went to Mharsanta, a Scottish Restaurant in the heart of Glasgow’s Merchant City. We shared a salad and a chicken club sandwich. We called it an early night since we were out past out bedtime the previous night for the Tattoo.