TRAVEL: A trip through Scotland's Best - Edinburgh, Pg. 9 |
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Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, “Darling, never mind! Tomorrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!
After Turnberry, our golfing excursion had ended. The next morning Roy had us up and out the door and we reluctantly said goodbye to this beautiful place, en route to spend the next two days in the city of Edinburgh. We had seen five of the most spectacular golf courses in the world – all steeped in history and each one giving us better perspective on what is actually means to play this game.
So we attacked Edinburgh the way a tourist would New York: via an open-roofed tour bus. There are three bus companies that operate these tours, but they all have the buses line up on the Waverly Bridge, which happened to be a half-block from our hotel.
Of all the great accommodations in Scotland, there can be no conversation of “the best” without mentioning the Balmoral Hotel, here in Edinburgh on Princess Street. The location is similar to the idea of The Plaza in New York being on 5th Avenue – except if New York had only one main thoroughfare rather than 10. Well, Princess Street is the man drag in Edinburgh, and it separates what is known as the “Old City” and the “New City.” To the south of Princess Street is the old part of town, encompassing all the old meadows and gardens. It also incorporates the beautiful Edinburgh Castle up on the hill, and down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Park and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where the Queen of England stays when she’s in Scotland. In something that is wonderfully unique about this city is that this portion of town is also built on two separate levels, meaning that on the map one road can look like it meets up to Princess Street, but it was built in an earlier time so it is actually below the level of the main street. It’s strange, and can be confusing, but is dealt with pretty easily once you get the hang of it. What these two separate levels create is a series of bridges in the middle of the city. They all have something running underneath them, it’s just not water. There’s no water anywhere near the main part of the city, and only from the highest vantage points can you see out to the North Sea; east to East Lothian and north, over the Firth of Forth back in the direction of St. Andrews.
It was on one of these bridges where we got on our tour bus and headed up the hill to see the magnificent Edinburgh Castle. Up a very steep rocky hill that is plugged top of an extinct volcano, it is said that humans have been living atop this mount since the 800s B.C. Although it’s unclear what those early civilizations were, the castle itself can be traced back to at least the reign of King David I in the 12th century. Once up inside the walls of the castle, there are all sorts of wonderful things to explore, one of them being a small chapel that was built with that original structure in the 12th century. In another section the Queen’s Jewels are displayed, which normally creates a long (and frustrating) line to just see the lights glimmer off rocks the size of – well, yea, golf balls. The views from this vantage point down onto the city are just outstanding, and the castle is worth at least a couple hours of your time. Leaving through the front gates, you walk onto the Royal Mile, which is a downhill, cobblestone road leading you through a very touristy section of town. There are shops where you can go and buy your Scottish equivalent of the “I Heart NY” shirt, which is normally an English-made tam or a kilt made from a wool blend. There are many good shops along the road, though, and if you pick through them carefully, this is where you are best suited to find a good keepsake.
About halfway down, it goes back to being a quaint city, and eventually you reach the bottom, where Holyrood Palace is located. Although you can’t go in when the Queen is in town, she almost never is, so it’s free reign. With numerous buildings of regal nature, and a full large yard in the back where the Queen throws formal garden parties, it’s a site to be seen. Walking down the Royal Mile can be a bit overwhelming, with all the fellow tourists and hoopla. So one late afternoon after getting bumped into one time too many, my girlfriend and I decided take a breather in a small pub. It had been there since the 1858 and felt new. Following a pint or two, I looked at the menu and saw they had haggis. Before leaving for Scotland, I said I was dead-set on trying this national mystery food, predicting that I would even like it. Up to this point, I had avoided it, but that time was now over. “I think I’m going to get it,” I said. “Why do you look so scared,” my girlfriend said. “I thought you wanted to do this?” I did, so I placed an order. When it came, it looked just as I had expected. If corned beef hash can be black and not look completely rotten, than that’s how haggis looks. And that’s how haggis tastes, like a grainy corned beef hash. I was right, I liked it, and mixed with a little mashed potatoes on the side, I could eat it consistently.
Getting back to Princess Street from anywhere is easy, as almost the whole city of Edinburgh is walkable. Crossing to the north side, into the “New City,” the demeanor of the city changes quite a bit. The buildings are newer – anything mid-1800s is considered for the whippersnappers – and with a series of small squares and parks, the area has a little more geographical structure to it. Running parallel to Princess Street is Rose Street, which is a narrow road not meant for cars, which probably saves many lives over the course of the year. That’s because Rose Street has so many pubs and clubs that it rivals Hoboken for the most concentration of bars anywhere in the world. On the second night we were there, we decided to go explore these pubs, but apparently it was a weekend that was designated for “stag” and “hen” parties. That means they were filled with loud and obnoxious groups, the men loud and bawdy, the women dressed in costume and squawking. We ended up walking back to the Old City and found a moderately eventful little pub where we could sit and sip a properly poured Guiness. It’s odd for a New Yorker to hear last call before 1 a.m. – especially when you’re in a country known for enjoying its alcohol – but that’s when the lights flickered and we headed back to the Balmoral Bar for a nightcap. The lounge in the hotel is high-end all the way, and as we found out, late at night they will continue to serve you. They do it under the guise of room service, and in doing so they say you can’t stay in the barroom itself. So we “took our drinks in the drawing room,” as the bartender put it, which was moderately large room across the lobby. It was a strange place, packed with couches like a furniture depot and the walls were covered with strange art, including a large framed leopard-print cloth.
After the nice man brought us our drinks – and we felt completely guilty about making him serve us in some sitting room far away from the bar – he also placed down a couple menus. We had a wonderful meal that night in a restaurant called Stack Polly, filled with fresh Scottish ingredients, including a delicious appetizer featuring haggis (my new favorite) wrapped in puff pastry. But at 2 a.m. and after a couple beverages, when someone offers you Indian Nan bread, it’s hard to pass up. The waiter said he would come back to take our order. Before he could do so, a middle-aged man who looked like he tried to drink the town dry stumbled in and started talking. Well, mumbling is more accurate, and the only thing that I could discern from his liquid verbalization was “I’m pissed.” That’s an English term meaning drunk, and it was redundant. None of us could say anything, just sat there agape at this man’s glorious performance. He then turned around towards the door to exit, but in doing so shuffled his feet a little as if to do a small dance. “Ah, little jig,” I said. “Nice way to go out.” We laughed all the way back to the rooms, with the menus and promise of Nan bread still sitting there to greet the waiter if he ever returned.
THERE are two other places in Edinburgh that must been seen – and climbed, if one is physically able. The first one is a tall monument that you can’t miss, sitting directly at the corner of the East Princess Street Gardens, next to the street where all of the open-top buses congregate. It is a 200-foot-6-inch tall gothic tower that is dedicated to the Scottish author Sir Walter Scott. Easy enough to believe, it’s the largest monument in the world dedicated to an author.
Above a small rotunda where there is a sculpture of Scott sitting in a chair, the tower rises like a medieval church spire into the sky, and inside are 287 grueling steps leading you to the top. As you make your way up the spiraling stairs, the walkway continues to get narrower and steeper and it becomes tough to navigate. It’s not for the faint of heart, and the stairs themselves are just small slivers of stone that, if missed, will send you tumbling down for a serious injury. There are three landing areas on the way to the top, and when you finally get there, the view of the city is terrific. The other wonderful climb is in the eastern part of town, up on what is called Calton Hill. There sits the Nelson Monument, dedicated to Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, who defeated the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The 105-foot tower, looking like it could be at the corner of a Lego castle, was finished in 1817 and was placed at the highest part of Calton Hill, 561 feet above see level. It replaced an earlier mast that signaled ships in the Firth of Forth. After climbing another 143 steps, there is a viewing gallery from the top of the tower. From there, you look down on the whole city; from the castle up on the hill, to the Forth leading into the North Sea, to the coastline of East Lothian. The day we were up there, the sky was crystal clear. I squinted into the wind to look over the Forth to see if I could spot St. Andrews in the far distance. Maybe if I looked hard enough I could even see Carnoustie. Maybe if I looked west, over this beautiful and ancient city, I could see the Ailsa Craig, and the stunning links of Turnberry and Prestwick. Maybe all I had to do to see all those things was close my eyes. Yup, there they are. And they’re never going away.
“Experience” By Ralph Waldo Emerson The lords of life, the lords of life, – I saw them pass In their own guise, Like and unlike, Portly and grim, – Use and surprise, Surface and dream, Succession swift, and spectral wrong, Temperament without a tongue, And the inventor of the game Omnipresent without a name; – Some to see, some to be guessed, They marched from east to west: Little man, least of all, Among the legs of his guardians tall, Walked about with puzzled look. Him by the hand dear Nature took, Dearest Nature, strong and kind, Whispered, “Darling, never mind! Tomorrow they will wear another face, The founder thou; these are thy race!”
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