Edinburgh

New Europe tours offers free tours in Edinburgh, but they start at 10am, thus making it impossible for Julie and I to stay only one night in Edinburgh. We spent two nights at a campsite recommended in our European camping guide. When we arrived we were extremely happy to learn they had WiFi since it was mother’s day and this would be a perfect way to communicate with our mothers. We purchased two 24hr cards for £5 each. Unfortunately the internet was down and we could not use it. We ended up getting a full refund when we left. Since it was mother’s day, we tried to call using the phone outside the campsite. We were told later that the phone does not accept calling cards which would explain why we couldn’t call home. The campsite office had an internet terminal, £1/30minutes so we used this to send emails to our mothers. Being in no mood to cook and there being a pub located on the site of the campground, we decided to go to The Stable Bar for dinner and a pint. The next morning we managed to catch the bus into town but due to construction it let us off later than expected, which resulted in us having to rush to the meeting point. This really sucked because it was outside of a Starbucks, and I was hoping for a coffee to go along with the tour. We arrived, apparently with time to spare as it was 10 and nothing was going on. It turned out one of the guides was attacked by a shark and wouldn’t make it in (Our guide Andy made the story up for a laugh, it worked.) To our surprise the group is the largest we have seen since Berlin (the weather was horrible). The announcement was made that they were waiting for another tour guide for 10 minutes, thus giving us time to get a coffee. Julie was pleasantly surprised when she ordered her Chai Latte with no water to be told that they do it only if you ask them to and that she shouldn’t be shy about asking. Every Starbucks serves their Chai’s with water, not sure why, but it was the first Chai Julie liked from Starbucks. A small victory, but if you’re spending $10 Canadian on a drink you might as well enjoy it. The other guide showed up during the introduction and we went off with Andy who turned out to be one of our favourite guides from New Europe tours (www.neweuropetours.eu.co). So far we have done all the tours available with the exception of Amsterdam, as we didn’t know of it then. We continued along High Street heading towards Edinburgh Castle, occasionally taking a detour down a side street to be shown particular buildings. We saw where the guy who wrote “Auld Lang Sine” (the New Years Eve song) lived. Where taxes used to be collected and public correction took place (they used to nail wrong doers’ ears to a door). We stopped at one point in front of a door and before Andy could get started a couple came out the door. Andy said to the man “Happy Birthday” and instructed us to sing the birthday song. We did, the guy’s name was Fred, from Canada on vacation. All in good fun, however that first song turned out to be a warm up. Apparently Andy always exchanges greetings with an elderly fellow along the route but today when Andy said hi the elderly fellow replied “Hello, it’s my birthday”. It being his birthday, and wearing full Scottish attire, the group gladly sung “Happy Birthday” once again. Outside Edinburgh castle, on a wall, sits a tiny flower basket with an equally small plaque commemorating all the women killed during the witch hunt. Besides the plaque indicating that all the women were indeed witches, more humor can be found in knowing that the plaque was put up in the 70’s. We then proceeded to where all the executions took place, stopping briefly to point out the school that inspired JK Rowling’s Hogwarts. We ate at Biddy Muligans which was next to “The Last Drop”, the actual pub people would go for a drink before they were hung. We sat with two couples from Holland for lunch and chatted with them and Andy. Afterwards we made our way to the cemetery to see some famous graves. Julie and I can’t remember what the first sets of tombs were but we do remember they are now locked off because of some Goth kids playing a midnight soccer game with a skull. We were also shown a “grave cage” which was a giant metal cage that would surround the grave site to prevent body snatchers from breaking in and stealing the recently deceased. The story we remember the most though, was of a dog that stayed at its master’s grave for 17 years. They put up a statue in memory of this dog and the loyalty that it showed. The statue is apparently Scotland’s most photographed object. Apparently the William Wallace statue was the most photographed before it was sold to Donald Trump and moved to one of his golf courses, which is why the dog holds the #1 spot now (or so we were told). We continued along the street to a café called “the elephant house” where JK Rowling sat each day writing Harry Potter on napkins. She did this because it was cheaper to buy a cup of coffee than to heat her apartment for the day(She is now richer than the Queen, so don’t feel too bad for her). Andy then finished off the tour in a garden just below the castle. After the tour Julie and I went for yet another free tour, this time of Edinburgh Castle. This one was short though, only ½ hour but it was good enough. We explored what we could of the castle before moving on. The natural formation called “Arthur’s Seat” was next on our list, but my knee was starting to hurt much more so half way through the walk we called it quits. Making our way back to the town centre proved to be more difficult than we first thought. We managed to walk for about an hour before we figured out where we were and where we needed to go. Everything was closing and Julie didn’t want a tea in the famous elephant house so we decided to take some pictures of the monument to Sir Walter Scott (largest monument to a writer in the world) and catch the bus home. On the way back Julie and I managed to get seats on the second floor of the double-decker bus. It was pretty cool riding that high up.