To continue the trend of hiking and visiting natural landscapes, we first visited Arthur's Seat, which is a large landform that overlooks the city and is from volcanic activity. It was a bit of a steep climb, so that was rather challenging, but it gave us a great view of the city (and a sense of where everything was, since we did not yet have a map).
Here are some of the views of the city… this one is from Calton Hill, despite looking like part of Greece or Rome!
This is the Holyrood Palace, where the Queen stays when she is visiting Scotland.
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This was the first of the lions we saw while in the UK, as the lion is the main official animal of the UK, and England/royalty in particular.
Here is a closeup of the Palace from behind the fence.
After we climbed down from Arthur's Seat, we visited Dynamic Earth. This ended up possibly being our favorite thing we did in Edinburgh! It was a highly interactive exhibit in which you are "time traveling" through the course of time starting after the big bang. You learn about volcanoes, in which the floor moves and you see "lava" exploding from volcanoes that are built into the room, you enter areas that represent the arctic, etc. It definitely brought these geologic features to life! It was also interesting because we had just traveled to Iceland, and Iceland was brought up several times throughout the exhibit because of its varied geological features.
After several of the interactive rooms, we walked through an exhibit that took you through the progression of plants and animals, starting from the earliest bacteria and going to the human race. Jake posed with a few of the animals/species!
After this part of the exhibit, we traveled through different climate zones, and we climbed into a 3D flight simulator to travel to several parts of the world and look at different biomes. Finally, we watched a movie about extreme weather on other planets on their giant IMAX-like screen, which was pretty cool! On our way out, Jake had a blast in the gift shop and purchased a spinosaurus tooth, part of a meteor, and several rocks from other countries. All in all, it was awesome!
Right next Dynamic Earth was the Scottish Parliament building. It was beautifully constructed and we were able to view where the Members of Parliament meet. It was here where we were first able to learn about Scottish pride, and how despite being part of the UK, the Scottish really celebrate their Scottish identities. We also learned about how they voted to have their own parliament and gain some of their own individual representation in government, separate from England. Another issue that is relatively current (I had my students read an article about it last year) was the 2014 vote about whether or not Scotland would become its own separate country. The majority decided that they would stay part of the UK, and it is doubtful that they will split in the future, largely because economically, Scotland and England are largely tied together. Still, there is a lot of Scottish pride and they even have their own Scottish banknotes/bills that they use instead of the UK pounds. Fortunately, other parts of the UK also accept Scottish pounds.
I loved the area where the Members of Parliament meet! This building also is one of the most sustainable buildings in all of Scotland!
Another interesting part of the Parliament building was an exhibit that showed items that were gifted from other countries when the building opened. Any guesses on what the United States gave? You will see the answer as you scroll down a bit.
Botswana
We took a quick snack break with an almond croissant! Yum!
After some more walking around, it was time for dinner! We found a highly-rated vegetarian restaurant that was nearby, so we tried it out! The food was fantastic! Jake had a chili pancake/burrito kind of dish, and I had an asparagus risotto! As a disclaimer, I took a record number of food pictures in the UK, as it is a Mecca for vegan/vegetarian food! I believe it is the third or fourth best country in the world for vegans and vegetarians (the US lands in the top 8 or 9), and we could definitely tell this at all of the restaurants that we visited! It seemed like every single place had at least 4 or 5 vegan or vegetarian options!
Our final stop of the day was a visit to Calton Hill, where we enjoyed walking around and taking in the sunset!
Hanging in there? We are halfway done!
On our second full day in Edinburgh, we did a free walking tour. These are incredibly popular in major cities in Europe, and the idea is that if you enjoyed the tour, you tip your tour guide what you are able or what you feel like the 3 hour tour was worth when you are finished. We really enjoyed it, and the following are images from the tour.
This is the only statue of a dog in Edinburgh, and his name is Bobby, or Greyfriar's Bobby. The story behind the statue is that during a time of war (or law enforcement related or something like that), many individuals were getting dogs that were much larger or see as better "protectors", like German Shepherds or pit bulls. However, one particular Greyfriar, John Gray, chose a very small Scottish terrier dog. Many people made fun of this choice during his life, but when the Gray died two years later, many reported that Bobby visited his tombstone every single day for the rest of his life, for another 16 years! The people of Scotland loved this dog and this story, but typically if a dog was abandoned or didn't have a home they were sent to the pound, etc. Because the Scottish did not want anything bad to happen to Bobby, they granted him citizenship, which would allow him to freely stay at his owner's grave. Ironically, because he was granted citizenship, he was also given the right to vote, many years before women and some men had the right to vote! Regardless, it makes for an interesting story (although our tour guide did a much better job of telling it than I did in this paragraph!)
While we were in the graveyard, we noticed several of these cages. The story behind these cages is connected to the medical department at the University of Edinburgh. At the time, the anatomy/medical department would only receive one body each year to practice on. As there were many students who wanted to learn how to be doctors/surgeons, this was not very practical. Therefore, providing additional bodies to the University proved to be a very profitable "business" that many poor individuals participated in. However, if people wanted to properly bury and respect their deceased family members, they needed to do one of two things. First, if they were more wealthy, they could pay to story their family member in one of these cages for one or two weeks, until the body decomposed enough to no longer be useful to the medical students. Second, if a family could not afford to pay for the cage, they needed to have someone guarding the tomb at all times. This is where the term "graveyard shift" comes from!
I am personally not much of a Harry Potter fan, but for those who are, J.K. Rowling actually wrote Harry Potter in Edinburgh, and would often visit this cemetery to get ideas about names for characters, such as Tom Riddley, Moody, and Crookshanks. She also drew inspiration for Hogwarts from looking at the following two pictures.
This is the window of the cafe from where J.K. Rowling wrote her books!
Here are some more views from the city!
After our walking tour, we were pretty tired, but knew we had to visit Edinburgh's largest tourist attraction, the Edinburgh Castle. While there were some pretty views, I think if we were going back to the city in the future, we might have skipped it, most likely because it was very crowded and not as cool looking (or even as historical) as some of the other castles we have visited. Alas, there are still some lovely pictures! I will say that our favorite part was a building dedicated to those from Scotland who had lost their lives in WWI and WWII. Inside there were large books that listed every single person who served, where they were from, how old they were, when and where they died, etc. These records were meticulous and fascinating, and I would be curious to see if there would be anywhere to access the U.S. military records like these.
And that concludes one of the longest posts I have ever written! Hopefully you found that enjoyable! There is more U.K. on the way!
Super, what fun
ReplyDeleteWe've never been to Scotland but after seeing your pictures, we've added it to our list of countries.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad! It was very beautiful!
DeleteLove the Harry Potter photos since I am a fan.
ReplyDeleteI really want to know if you tipped your tour guide or if you were cheapskates.
ReplyDelete