Frankenstein's Pub, Edinburgh

On our last night in Edinburgh, we wanted to go to a local pub for a fine meal. We try to go to the Greyfriars Bobby Pub. Alas, no tables were available and no one seemed like they'd be getting up soon.

We walked back up the street and the World Famous Frankenstein Pub was just opening its doors for dinner. We went in and found plenty of tables available. We sat in the corner by the fire. As the name suggests, much of the decor is centered around Mary Shelley's classic novel and the many movies it inspired. Many electric arcs streamed up the walls just like the equipment in the Boris Karloff classic. Some posters from more modern films, like from Hammer Studios and the Kenneth Brannagh version, can be found. In the corner is the monster himself.

Lucy was the only appropriately skeptical one!

Since this was the last night in Edinburgh, I felt I should try something of the local flavor, especially since we did mall food court fish and chips and chain restaurant Italian the two previous nights. First, I ordered a special drink off the menu, the Doctor Frankenstein.

Better than a zombie?

The drink was sweet and seductive and satisfying. But the real local flavor was the meal I ordered: haggis, neeps, and tatties.

I'm sure many readers have heard of haggis, which is infamous for being made up of "leftover" parts of the animal. I had one friend who used to say, "hoofs and eyeballs," which I don't think is true. On our previous trip to Scotland (six years ago), we had dinner with my cousin and her husband. He ordered us haggis, which we ate politely. The next morning, we told our bed and breakfast host that we had haggis. Her reply, "You can't get real haggis ever since they passed those laws!" Frankenstein's haggis wasn't too bad but is on the low end of tasty meat products.

What about the other parts of my dish? Neeps is basically mashed yellow turnips, which made a fine side dish. Tatties sounds really naughty, but is in fact merely mashed potatoes. They were well done.

We enjoyed the atmosphere and, as usual, Jacob liked the potty. It seemed like the pub was a bit of a club, but early on a Sunday night there wasn't much action. We did hear The Automatics' hit single Monster, which is famous for the lyric: "what's that coming over the hill is it a monster? is it a monster?" That was thematically nice to hear.

We headed back to our hotel for our final rest in Edinburgh. The next morning would be our escape, if we could navigate the downtown roads to get beyond the city limits. On the way south, we visited one more castle, a romantic, windswept, seaside fortress which would fit naturally nearby Whitby Abbey. But more on that in a future blog.

Edinburgh Castle

Sunday morning we headed out early to go to Edinburgh Castle and have the most time possible to visit this best-of-all castles we have visited.

Model of the castle

We took a bus across town and had to walk up the Royal Mile to reach the castle. We got to see some sights along the way to the front gate.

Lucy is a big girl!

Street view of a church turned to a festival center

Lucy, Auntie Rosemary, Jacob and Mommy

The gatehouse that lets people into the castle was built in 1888 and is flanked by statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. We were excited to go in and see so many different things.

Many defenders before the official opening time

Almost immediately inside we came upon some of the guns on the Argyle Battery that protected the castle. Jacob was pretty excited about the guns.

Jacob wanted to take one home!

We did get accosted by a photographer who took our picture and gave us a number for buying pictures of ourselves on the way out. I'm happy to report that was the only Disneyesque part of being in the castle. We proceeded up the Lang Stairs to see St. Margaret's Chapel.

St. Margaret's Chapel was built in the 12th century by King David I as a private chapel dedicated to his mother, who died in the castle in 1093. It is small and charming and is the oldest building in Edinburgh.

Jacob and Lucy in the chapel

awesome stained glass!

The beautiful altar

Defending St. Margaret's Chapel is the famous medieval siege gun, Mons Meg. The gun was one of a pair of guns given to James II as a wedding gift. The gun weighs a ridiculous six tons and shoots gunstones weighing 330 lbs. It was used in wars with England for a while but eventually was used only as a saluting gun since it was so difficult to transport. In 1558 it fired a salute for Mary Queen of Scots' wedding. The gunstone was found almost 2 miles away. On 14 October 1681 it was fired for the last time when the barrel burst. The damage wasn't too bad and you can see some of the burst bands if you look closely (though not in my photos, sorry!).

Jacob: Wait, can I take THIS one home?

We also saw the Half-Moon Battery, where the guns for the Remembrance Day salute were stationed.

Below here is the ruins of David's Tower (named after the son of Robert the Bruce), which had some interesting cellars that we wandered through. Also, Jacob found the toilets there, which is always a highlight for him wherever he goes.

From here, we entered the Royal Palace where the Honours of Scotland are housed. The Honours are the crown, sceptre and sword of state for Scotland and are the oldest royal regalia in the UK. They were used for the coronation of Mary Queen of Scots and for many others. They were hidden from Cromwell and eventually locked away after the 1707 treaty uniting England and Scotland. In 1818 Walter Scott recovered them and they have been on display here for quite some time. Also, the Stone of Destiny is here, which had served as the seat for enthroning Scottish kings until Edward I removed it from Scone Abbey near Perth in 1296. It became a part of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey for the English royalty. In 1996 it was returned to Scotland and will only ever leave if there is another coronation in Westminster. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed. Trust me, they were very impressive.

We also toured the Great Hall, which has very many displays of historical weapons. Why won't my wife let me decorate this way?

This is tasteful for a home, right?

We might have difficulty collecting enough swords for a display like this.

We went for a snack at the Red Coat Cafe. All the baked goods are made in the castle and the scones are quite good. While we were here, they fired the Remembrance Day cannons though we did not hear them. The castle is quite big and we didn't see many things, like the Scottish National War Memorial or the Prisons of War exhibit. The children's energy was flagging, so we headed back down the pathways and through the portcullis to find our bus and some lunch before nap time struck again.

No one had the energy to pose, so here are some strangers at the Portcullis Gate

The end of our Edinburgh trip was soon. More in a future post!

Royal Oak Pub, Edinburgh

Saturday night we went to Pizza Express in Edinburgh, because we wanted to go somewhere where we were sure the kids would eat. For the American readers, it's much more like an Italian restaurant than like Pizza Hut, which you might guess from the name. The food is good and they are child-friendly. We had a nice dinner. Afterward, we headed back to the hotel for bedtime.

Rosemary wanted to see some live music while in Edinburgh, specifically some Celtic music. Consulting our guide book and the waiter at our restaurant, we had a few leads to follow after the children fell asleep. My wife gladly stayed behind to get some rest too.

We checked a few pubs on the Royal Mile but couldn't find any with music. It was about 9 p.m. so we thought they'd at least be setting up if not already playing. One other possibility was The Royal Oak, which turns out to be an award winning pub. The awards they won are for being a fantastic live music venue. The room wasn't that big, maybe fifteen by fifteen feet. The bar is in the back and the piano is on the wall next to it. Some bench seats go around a corner by the front. That's where the musicians were set up.

The first guys playing were some mellow fellows who sang and played mostly folk tunes like Simon and Garfunkel, along with occasional traditional Scottish ballads. The main singer seemed to have already dipped substantially into the tip jar for beers. He was a good singer and did a great job.

The accordianist is eclipsed by the base player

The main guy for the second set was a big bloke with a beard and mustache who looked like he was ready to change into the old clothes and fight with Robert the Bruce or William Wallace. He had a bellowing voice that filled the room. When he started his set, he gave a disclaimer: "If you want to listen to music, you've come to the right place. If all you want to do is talk, there's 700 other pubs in Edinburgh, including the bar downstairs. Please go there if you don't want to listen. That's all I have to say on the subject." Then he played. He had a few other people helping him play and sing.

Another customer had a kazoo and he would play along on a lot of the tunes. He would make jokes about having a KMD, or Kazoo of Mass Destruction. He had a lot of funny jokes along that line. At least, I supposed they'd be funny if you'd been drinking for a while. The band members didn't seem to mind him being there. They loved people singing along.

The violinist at one point played a solo of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that got everyone singing. Other popular tunes were "Sound of Silence" and some ballad about a Scottish lass that we didn't recognize, but all the locals did.

We had a great time and headed home around 11. The next morning we'd be off to Edinburgh Castle, perhaps one of the best castles in the world.

National Museum of Scotland

After having a snack, we set off for the National Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street in Old Town Edinburgh. It was a very short walk. In fact, it was little more than across the street.

We went in the Tower Entrance and asked how to get to the green gazebo in the main hall. The helpful guide sent us on our way. As we walked down, I saw my cousin! After hellos and hugs, we walked over to the science and technology gallery on level one, where lots of interactive exhibits kept the children entranced.

Jacob's favorite exhibit by far was the robotic arm (the "white robot" according to him). A touch screen let you type in your name and the arm would pick up wooden blocks and spell the name on a little rack. We must have played it fifteen times, using different names and words.

The arm spells "train"

Across from the white robot was a demonstration of efficiency of maglev trains. One model train had wheels on a track, the other was supported on a cushion of air. Lucy would push the first and it would go a small distance. She would push the other and it would go all the way across! It's a great demonstration of how friction can eat up energy.

Faster! Faster!

Another display popular with children and adults was "Rocket Power" at the back of this hall. A crank would build up power to launch a rocket. The longer you cranked the wheel, the more power it would have. The guide wire for the rocket reached up two stories, but we could hardly get it up to the first story no matter how much we cranked or thought we overcranked it. A small dial showed how much energy was stored and went from yellow to green to red. We all took turns spinning the wheel. First we got it in the yellow area and the rocket only launched a foot and a half up the wire. Then we cranked it to green, getting maybe three feet. Finally, we tried to get the dial to "red line" but that still only yielded about five feet of vertical lift. It was fun but a little disappointing.

We tried out some other exhibits and then walked through the main hall to the Animal World, where all the stuffed animals and skeletons of animals are kept. I'd never seen a moose skeleton before which was pretty neat. Lucy loved identifying the animals--lions, snakes, sharks, etc. Dinosaurs were mixed in, too, which was lovely. Andrew, my cousin's husband who's a native Scotsman, said this hall was getting a bit dusty until the recently completed overhaul of the museum. It only reopened at the end of July this year (2011, for those reading the blog in the far distant future).

We also walked through the nearby space exhibit and saw some meteors and a thousand-year old astrolabe. Then we went upstairs to see the costume and musical instrument exhibit. Jacob and Lucy had fun playing on the demonstration instruments with their second cousin. Or is he a first cousin once removed? I still haven't figured out that complicated family tree dynamic. Maybe the museum should have an exhibit on that!

Lucy, Jacob, and Thomas enjoy this percussion instrument.

We also saw the impressive Millennium Clock in the main entrance. We didn't plan properly to hear it chime the hour, but I'll bet it is impressive. At this point, Jacob and Lucy were ready for lunch and nap time. And they let us know it too, fortunately just by telling us verbally, not by having a fit or falling asleep on someone's shoulder.

Time's up! Also, this is much taller than the rocket would go.

We didn't get to see everything I would have liked to, like the famous Lewis Chessmen. But that gives us an excuse to come back some day. And since the museum is free, why not?

The Elephant House, or the Birthplace of Harry Potter

After our visit to St. Giles Cathedral, we walked over to The Elephant House, which proudly displays that it is the "birthplace" of Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling sat in the back room of the tea shop writing many of the early Harry Potter novels. Authors Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall-Smith have also been to the tea shop many times.

The shop is nice with the coffee bar right in front, so you can order your snack and drinks without searching around. We bought some tea for us and juice for the children, along with a rainbow cookie for Lucy, a caramel muffin for Jacob, and other assorted cakes and tray-bakes for the adults. We went to the back room to see where the "magic" happened.

Our table had a nice view of Greyfriars Kirk and some of the castle. Jacob ate his muffin with gusto.

The disappearing muffin trick; also note the elephant pictures!

Lucy nibbled on her cookie while she wrote on a napkin. I think she is attempting, in the spirit of the place, to write a Harry Potter sequel, maybe along the lines of Scarlett and Cosette. Here she is working diligently:

Writing the first sentence is always the hardest.

Like the Gettysburg Address envelop, the Harry Potter napkin

We will let you know when the final draft is ready and we've worked out a deal with Rowling to let Lucy publish her masterpiece. Or we'll reedit it with new names and places to let us get around the copyright issues.

The bathrooms here also had lots of Harry Potter graffiti, or at least the ladies' room did. My wife reports various writings, including a list of Dumbledore's Army where people put their initials. The men's room has no writing on the wall. I leave readers to draw their own conclusions.

We enjoyed our treat and recommend others visit it. We went from here to the National Museum of Scotland, where my cousin told us that many different coffee shops claim to be where Rowling wrote her novels. It seems plausible that she wrote in more than one place, though which one was first or saw the most action may only be answered by Rowling herself. She hasn't complained about The Elephant House, so I leave the readers to draw their own conclusions again.

St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

The night before we went to St. Giles Cathedral, we walked by and had a chance to get a night time shot. They haven't lit their Christmas tree yet, for which we were grateful, but it is already up. The church is quite gorgeous both outside and inside and all around.

St. Giles at night, with Christmas tree unlit

Saturday morning we took a bus from our side of town (New Town) to the cathedral's side of town (Old Town). We arrived a little before the church was officially open at 9 a.m. so we took the opportunity to walk around the outside of the church in the daylight.

St. Giles in the morning from a slightly different angle

This impressive statue of Charles II is found around the back of the cathedral.  The statue dates from 1685 and is the oldest lead cast statue in England.

Charles II as a Roman Emperor!

We could also see the City Chambers across the Royal Mile from the church.

We also saw the street cleaners!

We wandered into one of the many narrow streets/alleyways that are ubiquitous in the Old Town area. Since this neighborhood has lots of law courts and civic buildings, is it any wonder we found Advocates Close nearby?

Lucy and Rosemary weren't ready for their close up.

The Scott Memorial rose up dramatically in this view from the Close.

Yes, that isn't a church spire

We finally went inside the church to look around and say some prayers too. St. Giles is famous for having many of the colors of the clans on display inside. It was amazing to see so many flags, some in the sort of worn condition that makes the viewer think the flags were used on the battlefield and are now in honorable retirement in this house of the Lord.

The stained glass was also quite impressive and glorious in the morning sunshine.

Scenes from the life of Christ

The Western Window. Note the heart shape like in York Minster's window!

We also saw the bishop's chair, which puts the cathedra in the cathedral.

The main altar is located in the center of the church and is quite modest by comparison to many of the other cathedrals we have seen in England, and in fact anywhere.

A nicely unpretentious altar with the organ in the background

As we were walking around, the organist came in and started playing some pieces. Jacob, Lucy, and Mommy sat down to enjoy his performance. The first piece was quite nice, but the second was far too loud for Jacob, who ask to leave. That more or less ended our visit inside the church.

Jacob was so fascinated that he forgot to look at the camera!

Outside, we found the Heart of Midlothian, a heart-shape in the plaza tiles that commemorates the Old Tollbooth Prison that formerly stood here. Also it's the spot where many convicted criminals were executed before the building was demolished in 1817. Lucy was unfazed by the history of the spot.

No fear and trembling here!

We still had some time before we'd meet my cousin's family at the National Museum of Scotland, so we decided to have a snack at the birthplace of Harry Potter. But more on that in the next post!

Double Dead Tour in Edinburgh

Friday night my sister and I went on one of the many ghost tours available in Edinburgh. We chose the City of the Dead's Double Dead Walk. This walk includes the highlights of their two regular and exclusive tours, one for the South Bridge Vaults and the other for the Covenanter's Prison. We met our guide at the eastern end of St. Giles' Cathedral.

Our tour guide was a lovely Aussie named Ariadne, after the famous figure in Greek mythology who helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur Labyrinth. She (our guide, that is) has a completely unsqueamish interest in human bones and the paranormal. She claims no psychic or paranormal abilities but is fascinated with both and asked us to report anything we felt or experienced during the walk. Her enthusiasm for the subject and storytelling skills made the tour quite fun.

Ariadne does her worst to us in the South Bridge Vaults

The South Bridge Vaults is an area of the South Bridge that was originally used for storage by merchants who had their shops nearby or above. When they realized that sewage (including human waste) was seeping through the sandstone bridge and covering their wares, they moved it all elsewhere. The area became a haven for the poor (who couldn't afford to live in parts not ankle-deep in sewage), which eventually attracted criminals to the area. The area became so dangerous that the police would no longer come there. The boldness of the criminals increased. The average life expectancy for a male who moved into the South Bridge Vaults was six months, less for women and children. Between the sewage spreading disease, the graverobbers looking for fresher fare, and the baby farmers exploiting pregnant women, the area hosted a lot of suffering and many miserable deaths.

Ariadne's stories stuck mostly with authenticated history and her personal experiences of being a tour guide for seven years. She's seen a lot of people's strange reactions, including passing out (two people on tours were left behind overnight!), injuries explainable and unexplainable, people feeling "cold spots" or being touched (though she did admit often the touching was by "horrid buggers" on the tour trying to freak out their friends).

No way back, so we had to go on to the next stop....

Our next stop on the tour was the Covenanters' Prison in Greyfriars Graveyard, home of the Mackenzie Poltergeist. The Covenanters were a group of Scotsmen in the 17th century AD who protested being forced to become Anglicans by the English King. They were eventually defeated and a thousand of them were imprisoned in this part of the churchyard with no shelter and hardly any rations. Dying from the harsh conditions (exposure, starvation, intolerant guards shooting prisoners with little or no justification), this area also hosted a lot of suffering and many miserable deaths. After the prisoners left in 1679, the area was used for burials. Many mausoleums were built along the walls, including one for George Mackenzie.

This burial chamber, dubbed the "Black Mausoleum," is home to the Mackenzie Poltergeist. The mausoleum and the nearby churchyard experienced so many unexplained phenomena and attacks that the Edinburgh council had it locked, presumably to get rid of the complaints. The tour company organizer has since made a deal to allow groups in to see it, allowing them to pin all the complaints on the tour company. Ariadne told us that on a previous tour a man thought his chums were hitting him while in the tomb. She took him outside and looked at his back which had five large welts under his clothes. Another time a small boy came out of the tomb with blood all over his face. He told his mom and Ariadne that he felt someone touching his face and assumed that was part of the tour. The mom was understandably furious, though Ariadne admired the boy's pluck.

A quiet night in the mausoleum, mostly.

Our tour alas did not have any supernatural or unexplainable manifestations, though there were three "jump" moments provided by Ariadne's expert storytelling and other helpful sound effects. The tour was a lot of fun, even if a cold drizzle started halfway through. We enjoyed the stories but had no problem sleeping that night.

First Night in Edinburgh

Driving to Edinburgh from Hadrian's Wall wasn't too hard. Driving through Edinburgh to our guest house (or bed and breakfast) was very hard. We had to drive through town from the south, which meant crossing the historic area in the middle. Google's directions would have been okay if they hadn't directed us down one-way roads and roads that are only for buses and taxis!

Luckily, we had a fairly detailed map of the downtown area, so we were able to navigate around, though we still came to corners where we'd like to turn except for the "buses only" signs. Oh, and there was a point where we wanted to turn left on the South Bridge, which would have worked if we hadn't been down below driving underneath the bridge. Someday, someone will invent 3D maps to avoid such problems.

We finally made it to Ardenlee Guest House on Eyre Place.

Our room was behind those upstairs windows

After unpacking a bit and having some tea (Scottish shortbread cookies were left with our tea things!), we headed out to explore a bit and find some dinner.

We walked back up to the heart of New Town. Lots of shopping and restaurants and construction and the Occupy Edinburgh protest could be found there. We wandered quite a bit and couldn't find a restaurant that didn't have a long line or wait (it was Friday night), so we wound up at a mall food court where we had fish and chips from a Scottish chain. The children ate quickly which was our priority since we had walked them uphill almost all the way.

We then walked over to the Walter Scott Memorial, which had a large display for Remembrance Day (Veterans' Day in the USA).

Walter Scott's Statue

Honoring the war time dead

We also saw the castle at night from a distance and then headed back to our hotel. The children needed to go to bed. We stopped at a little store to get milk for Lucy and some snacks, and discovered Jammie Dodgers!

What's so exciting about those cookies? Doctor Who used one to fool the Daleks into thinking he could blow up his Tardis with a cookie-shaped remote control (if a time machine can look like a police call box, then why not a cookie-shaped remote?).

Spoiler! He did wind up eating it.

We returned to the hotel for more tea and treats. The children went to sleep quickly, with Mommy not far behind. That left Auntie Rosemary and I to explore after hours. We chose to go on one of the many ghost tours of the city, which will be the topic of the next post!