Day 11 - Scott Monument, Edinburgh Castle & Greyfriar's Bobby

On our first full day in Edinburgh, my parents went with their bus tour around the city to see the sights, and the five of us took off on our own. We met up in our room at the end of the day for Scotch and dinner.

Scott took this picture of the Scott Monument. The inside of this thing has narrow, spiral stone staircases almost all the way up. We took them - all 287 steps. Maybe not the smartest thing to do, but there is a nice view of Edinburgh from the top. Aunt Susan was clever enough to sit this one out.

We were intrigued by these little pedestrian alleys in Edinburgh. Walking along the 'Royal Mile' as it rose up to Edinburgh Castle, about every 100 feet there would be a little walkway, a "close", connecting the High Street down to the other streets along side it. There were lots of shops and businesses that appeared to only be accessible to a 'close'. They were quite long, maybe 100 yards, and each one was named, just like streets.

(Above) The real story of how I met Nancy!

This is the entrance to Edinburgh Castle, which we all agreed was the best castle we saw on the trip.

I once saw an interview with the guy who wrote the screenplay for "Braveheart". He talked about how he got interested in the story. It began when he was just another tourist visiting Edinburgh Castle. There was a statue on one side of the entryway, and when he asked who it was, someone told him about William Wallace. The history wasn't widely known, and he was intrigued enough to research the story, and eventually wrote the movie, all from a visit to this statue.

Here's the view of Princes Street from the castle. The black spire just to Sean's left is the Scott Monument, in a small valley between the castle and the main shopping district.

The castle had pretty cool audio tours on CD's. Every spot of interest had a little sigh with a number - if you wanted information on something, you pressed that number on the CD player, and it gave you a speech for 3 or 4 minutes. There were hundreds of signs and speeches, and places with a lot of information would end with additional numbers to listen to for more information. It made it really easy to see what you wanted, at your own pace.

This photo was taken about 5 minutes before Sean left the black CSU sweatshirt wrapped around his waist in the men's room.

This small bedroom is where Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James 1st of England (James 6th of Scotland).

I waited a good 15 minutes for one of my travelling companions to come into the room to pose for a picture, but nobody ever did. I guess they'd all been there before me.

Here is the Great Room at Edinburgh Castle. Well, it really is a pretty good room...

One of Nancy's favorite parts of Edinburgh Castle was the Mascot's Cemetery. Dogs kept by members of the garrison are eligible to be buried here.

A big event that they do every day at Edinburgh Castle is the one o' clock firing of a cannon. They do this so that all the ships in the harbor can set their clocks, I'm sure it has nothing to do with all the tourists watching in the castle.

We were near a high vantage point inside the castle about 15 minutes before one, so we made ourselves comfortable and waited. After a while a soldier marched out and loaded one of the cannons, then he waited too. The kids started getting bored and fidgety, and we kept looking at our watches and telling them to keep their eyes on the cannon. Finally, Scott turned around and looked at Nancy as he asked, "When's it gonna happen?", just as it did.

My camera missed it too, just a blank spot on the negative. So we posed Scott here on our way out.

There was a tourist place across from the castle in Edinburgh where you could take your own photo in costume. The concept of this was good, we had visions of getting a picture we could use on our Christmas cards.

The execution wasn't great, though. I didn't like the way the costumes fit, their light was bad, and there was no ceiling to bounce the flash off of, so the harsh shadow ruined it for me.

The kids enjoyed playing with the swords, though.

The statue of Greyfriar's Bobby is almost a pilgrimage for Nancy. It's famous, but we found this by accident when we first came to Scotland in the 80's.

Bobby was a little dog who belonged to a man named John Gray. Apparently the only thing important that John Gray ever did was die in 1858. Bobby watched him get buried in the cemetery at Greyfriar's Kirk. After the burial, Bobby started a vigil over his gravesite - for the next 14 years. When Bobby died, he was buried close to his master, outside the cemetery. Two years later Baroness Burdett Coutts had this statue erected without any ceremony to commemorate his life.

This story makes Nancy cry every time.

One of the stories I read, I don't know if any of them are true, is that Bobby used to stay by the guy's grave until they fired the cannon at one o'clock. That would be his signal to go to the nearest pub (this one), where somebody would give him his lunch.

Everything around the little cemetery is named for the dog; Greyfriar's Bobby's Bar, Greyfriar's Bobby's hair parlor, Greyfriar's Bobby's parking lot...

After Greyfriar's, We split up. Nancy and Susan went back to the High Street to shop and look for an elegant place to have tea. The boys and I headed back to the hotel. We chose a different route home, for variety, along "The Mound". We found this neat relief map of Edinburgh, cast in bronze. All the tourist spots, like the castle and such, were shiny from all the tourists touching them and saying, "Here's the castle!" In this photo, Sean is indicating the Scott Monument, on the map and in real life.