scotland – Where is Phil now?

Edinburgh

Sunday 24 September 2017 – Edinburgh, Scotland.

In a rare show of organisation El and I planned to take my mum to Edinburgh for the weekend ages ago. Mum was going to spend a few days in Northumberland with her brother, so we thought we would tack Edinburgh on the start of that visit and drop mum in Alnwick on the way back to London. However, in my usual style I did not do anything about it until quite late, so we ended up paying too much for a pretty terrible hotel, though the train tickets did not seem to be any more outrageous than they normally are.

I started this post about three weeks ago, and the detailed memories of the trip are fading as fast as my brain is filling up with work projects, other activities and thinking about the pending festive season, and maybe a trip back to New Zealand next year. I feel a head cold coming on and I am really tired after a few sleep nights of disturbed sleep. This may well be a short post, and I am determined to finish today. I am glad I completed photo editing soon after the trip; at least there is a prompt for my ramblings.

As mum was not travelling back with us I had to buy her train ticket separately to us, though we did manage to sit together for a while. I took a few photos out of the window as usual, starting from Newcastle station, where the train journey gets more interesting.

We arrived in Edinburgh early on Friday afternoon, it was not a bad day, a bit windy and a bit cool. we were staying in the ‘new town’ and decided to check out that side of town first, saving the old town for a full day on Saturday. The ‘new town’ is hardly modern, mostly built in Georgian times. There are some lovely buildings.

We walked up Calton Hill, with its great views of Edinburgh and out over the Firth of Forth. The Nelson column, pierces the sky from the top of the hill and can be seen from all over Edinburgh.

The nearby National monument was started in 1825, and was to be a replica of the Parthenon in Athens, funds ran out in 1829 and building was stopped. Never to be restarted. It is a monument to Scottish soldiers killed in the Napoleonic Wars. It is quite popular.

Walking back down towards Princes St, we walked into the Calton Old Burial Ground, a place I thought about visiting last time we were here. The entrance is through a gate in a high wall, hiding a bigger space than I expected, full of old gravestones and monuments. It is a lovely place, and I quite enjoyed walking around. I will definitely go back next time we visit. Maybe even take the big camera and spend some proper time there.

We all went our separate ways after the graveyard, I went back to the hotel for a rest and mum and El went and did some shopping. Meeting up again late afternoon to walk, almost as far as the castle, to the famous Witchery Hotel for dinner. Walking anywhere in central Edinburgh is wonderful; as was the meal we had.

After dinner it was a slow stroll back down to the hotel, for a not particularly good night. I had to complain to reception at 4:00 am about the noisy neighbours.

Saturday morning we started our exploration of the old town. First walking down the Royal Mile; past a couple of interesting shops.

We did not pay for the tour of Holyrood, I took a photo through the gate and we stopped for coffee and cake.

There is a long day of walking ahead, something I kept forgetting, and that mum is a wee bit older than me. She is very fit, but she is not longer 75….

We then headed back up the long and reasonably gentle hill that is the Royal Mile.

At the top of the hill is Edinburgh Castle, we were thinking about visiting, but it was so crowded up there we did not go in, but we did admire some of the views from that side of town.

With lunch time approaching we walked down the side of the castle to Grassmarket and stopped for more coffee and a snack in a small cafe. Mainly because it had somewhere to sit down!

A rest and some food gave us a new burst of energy to head up the hill to the National Museum, there was a crowd gathered inside the entrance to Blackfriars cemetery so we decided to go in and have a look. A wise choice. Inside was a small display of owls who were either found injured on born in captivity. I love owls, though have never seen one in the wild in the UK. I must add that to my to do list! It was great to be able to get up close to these lovely birds.

It was also time to check the final result of the West Ham v Tottenham football match, the smile suggests who won. Tottenham, El is wearing her Poch coat, which almost guarantees a Tottenham win.

The statue of Blackfriars Bobby was on the way from the graveyard to the museum. I love how his nose is so shiny from the decades of hands touching and rubbing it.

We were knackered by the time we reached the museum, so only had a very cursory look around the ground floor, we will definitely come back here next time we are in the city, the building itself is worth a visit, and the museum does look interesting.

It was another early night, we were lucky to get an early table in a pizza restaurant quite close to the hotel. More sleep was had, though the same noisy neighbours came home late again, though this time there was no singing or loud voices till 4 am. Thankfully.

We checked out of the hotel after breakfast on Sunday morning, and took a slow stroll to the National Gallery, which I thoroughly enjoyed, along with a far better coffee than we had with breakfast. Thank goodness for gallery cafes I say.

After the gallery we took an even slower stroll to the station through the gardens.

We were quite early for our trains, though better to be late than never, and Edinburgh station is always busy.

Mum’s train left a few minutes before ours, so once we had mum safely on her train to Alnwick we were settled into our first class seats for the journey back to London.

It was not a bad trip either. I do love Edinburgh and if it was not so expensive, would consider it as a city to move to. London of the north when it comes to house prices.

Aberdeen

Thursday / Friday 31 August / 1 September 2017 – Aberdeen, Scotland.

El and have been considering a visit to Aberdeen for a while, finally rejecting the idea to add this to our planned trip to Edinburgh when mum visits us in September. One of the reasons for going to Aberdeen was to meet El’s Scottish family and see the places El visited when her parents were alive and living there.

Sadly one of those relations, El’s aunt, passed away last week after a short illness. El managed to visit her in hospital last week, so fortunately she got to say goodbye.

We are going up for the funeral on Friday morning, not a reason we envisaged for paying our respects to the Granite City. To compound things, my mum arrives at Heathrow on Saturday afternoon so we cannot even stay for the weekend. Seven and half hours on the train on Thursday, repeated when we return to London on Friday. Fortunately I quie enjoy long train rides.

We left London mid-morning. I must admit I actually enjoy train journeys in the UK, though fortunately so far I have never been on a journey of any distance where I have had to stand up. Being in first class also helps a little too!

I always try to take a few photos out of the window as we go, usually unsuccessfully; too many reflections and too much track side furniture getting in the way. Reflections aside I was quite happy with these two. I love rail side England; all the rolling hills, the fields of wheat, the grass, the farrowed land.

My favourite part of the journey north is once we have passed by Berwick and the train runs up the coast to Edinburgh, watching the sea always excites me, and it is what I miss the most living in London. Sometimes just seeing it is enough; though I did get this photo sort of wrong. Virgin should clean the windows of their trains.

We arrived in Aberdeen late afternoon, after what had been quite nice weather on the way up, it was cloudy and the rain came as we walked to our hotel.

We did not do a lot after checking in. The plan was to walk around the immediate area, check out some of the sights, absorb a bit of Aberdeen atmosphere and then have a meal and a quiet drink. The rain put paid to that. We walked about a hundred yards up the road, found a nice cafe that was open for evening meals – and a bit of street art. We retired early and watched TV in bed. Dinner was good, but boy, Aberdeen competes with London on prices!

The rain broke overnight and Friday started nice and bright, a shame that we had a funeral to attend. It was a small affair at the nuclear bunker-like Aberdeen crematorium. El’s Aunt Margaret had no children and there was not a lot of the wider family left. It was a short and gentle farewell.

We had a few hours before the train back to London, so after some quiet post funeral chat with other family members El and I check out of the hotel and went for a walk around. Back in the spring Nuart came to town and there was a bit of street art added to the grey granite walls of central Aberdeen. I had taken a look at the map before we left for our walk, but didn’t really expect to find much of it as it seemed quite scattered. Surprisingly I did find some as we went; so here are some pieces by,

Mr Cenz,

Alice Pasquini,

The wonderful Hera, half of the Heracut duo,

And some from artists that remain unknown.

Nice, I love coming across street art in different towns, I know a number of these artists are well represented on the walls of London, but that makes that familiarity even more special.

There are a lot of churches in Aberdeen, and I mean a lot. It seemed apparent that a lot have been converted into very un-Presbyterian dens of iniquity. Maybe the church needed the money. Bars and casinos seem to be the main theme. I am not a religious person, but found this lack of respect for these old buildings a bit of a shame. Maybe it is just the cheapness of the frontages I hate.

We had a good walk around, I liked Aberdeen, I loved the dark grey graniteness of the town, I liked the feel of the city, that it isn’t flat, there are alleyways and steps and it is not all square and straight and ordered. I would love to have explored more and to have had some time to understand its history and its famous characters.

Returning to the hotel, we picked up our bags and headed back to the station for lunch before getting on the train for the return seven and half hour journey. I confess to spending most of the journey slumped into my seat, listening to music and drinking red wine. It passed quite quickly.

The return had the same photographic opportunities as the originating journey.

With a stunning sunset as a bonus!

We will be back.

Edinburgh

Monday 09 September 2013 – Edinburgh.

One of my key regrets from when I lived in London in the mid 1980s was not seeing much of the greater UK, and this is something I really want to address now I am living here again. Scotland has always been on my must visit list and this weekend El and I took an introductory trip over the border and visited Edinburgh. I have to caveat this by mentioning that El has been here many times before, it is only me that has been slack.

We took the train from Kings Cross station on Saturday morning, the journey takes four and a bit hours and passes through a number of places I want to visit in England – York, Durham and Newcastle, before crossing the border at Berwick. It was a pretty cool journey, and so cool to be heading into the unknown and a new adventure.

We had a room in the Travel Lodge near the station and were very fortunate to be on the top floor, which was pretty much the only floor with a view…. And the view was over towards the castle and the Royal Mile – fabulous.

Fortunately the room was available though we were a couple of hours early for check in and we were able to drop our bags off before heading out for a first explore of the city – after a monstrous lunch in a small touristy noodle bar. My first impressions of a rainy downtown Edinburgh were WOW! The ‘old’ part of the city has been so well preserved, it is quite busy, with a lot of tourists and and I imagine a fair number of Edinburgh locals shopping in the posh shops in the area as well. I am a sucker for a town with steep cobbled streets, steps, small alley ways and hidden views that pop out at you if you keep your eyes open as you walk past. Sadly the weather didn’t really play ball and we had a few showers as we walked down past Cow Gate and along the Royal Mile to the centre of Scottish Government at Holyrood.

When the showers took a wee respite we decided to take a quick trip up the old volcanic mound of Arthur’s Seat, which was our planned objective for the afternoon. The views over Edinburgh were spectacular and when the sun was out it was quite warm up there.

Calton Hill

The Edinburgh Tattoo had just finished at the castle so sadly the view was partially blocked by all the temporary seating.

It was looking like rain so we took a hurried trip back down and slipped the rough path and twisted a knee which ended up in a very sore back on the final day, thankfully not serious but it did mean for a slow day on the Monday.

It started raining quite heavily as we walked back up the Royal Mile so we ended up taking a break from the rain in a little pub and talking whisky with a couple of Danish men, one who comes to Scotland every year to sample and buy whisky. Surprisingly we only had one whisky each the entire weekend – actually that should probably read ‘shockingly we had only one whisky all weekend!’

Once the rain had stopped we walked back to the hotel and I shot a few photos out of the window before we went out that most traditional of Scottish meals – a curry…

Arthur’s Seat.

More of the back of the Royal Mile.

Sunday was bright and sunny and we were out the door fairly promptly and on the hunt of coffee and food. We passed the Scot Monument before the climb to the top was open.

We walked back up towards the Royal Mile again anticipating that the heavily touristed areas would be the best location to find breakfast and we soon found a nice cafe (which we returned to on Monday) for breakfast.

After breakfast we walked up the Royal Mile towards Edinburgh Castle and I found the first of many “Rebus” locations. Fleshmarket Close. I am huge fan of Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels, most of which are set in Edinburgh and it was interesting to see so many places from the novels.

There were lots of other alleys to explore off the side of the Royal Mile as well.

The Edinburgh Festival is centred in this lovely old church, whose name I did not write down !

Out first stop for the day was the Camera Obscura up near the castle (in the top of the white tower) the camera was installed in the building in the 1850’s . The view from the top was fantastic and the camera obscura was really cool.

We were going to visit the castle, thinking that mid-morning would still be too early for the bulk of the other tourists, but the queue for tickets was massive – and there was not one single person waiting for the pre-booked tickets so we decided to flag the castle today and book tickets for tomorrow. I think a wise decision.

We wandered down the side of the castle down towards the Grassmarket where I found the best record shop in the world. They had coffee and records and posters and places to sit and enjoy music. Fantastic, a pity the staff had no interest in us as customers – and we were the only ones. Coffee was good though !

Grassmarket is a very cool area of shops and cafes, sort of hip on the fringes, but open and tidy and nice old buildings. I liked it.

We wandered up a side street looking for Greyfriars Bobby. The story has it that Bobby spent 14 years guarding his late owner, the night watchman, John Gray’s grave in Greyfriars Church yard after he died in 1858. True or not it is a cool story and has made the church very popular with tourists…

Even though it was a last resting place for plague victims.

The highlight of a very packed and pleasure filled Saturday was lunch at The Witchery, one of Edinburgh’s top eateries and being very smart El had booked us a table when we first decided to visit the town. The lunch was hugely enjoyable, food was good, wine was great and the company perfect.

After lunch we wobbled – with full bellies, not drunken legs ! Back down the valley for a wee afternoon rest in the hotel. We passed by this trio outside the art gallery and for a change I actually did not hate the sound of the pipes, maybe my ears were a little drunk… anyway, these guys actually sounded pretty good.

I took a few more photos out of the window, though the massive blue skies we had in the morning had given way again to clouds.

In the evening we took a walk up Calton Hill and it’s famous Grecian style national monument.

We had a walk around all the weird and wonderful collection of monuments and were about to settle in to look at the view when the rain came down and we huddled under a tree while we waited for the shower to pass. El had of course wisely brought a rain coat while I had looked at the clouds, though they looked like rain and did nothing about it. Luckily she shared. Yes, there is a weird colour cast in these shots – and no I cannot be bothered editing them out – sorry!

After the rain we wandered down from the hill, past the old parliament building.

We were going to visit the Robert Burns memorial but it was closed so we turned round and headed back into town.

We found this cake, left by the rubbish bins behind a hotel – I guess it may have a sad story behind it (it says ‘well done Grant and Steff’).

We popped into a supermarket and bought some cheese and fruit to munch on for a light tea and went back to our room to watch bad telly. It was a good day !

On Monday morning El woke with a really sore back and by the time we packed and checked out was in a bit of pain. We decided to visit the castle anyway as we had purchased tickets, though we did go via the same cafe as yesterday and I lingered over a good sized breakfast 🙂

We walked up to the castle again and again there was a massive queue for tickets but no-one at the pre-purchased ticket machine, so we were inside pretty quickly. I did not really enjoy the castle, El was in pain and there were a lot of people about, it was very pretty and the views were great, but I just wasn’t feeling it. We saw most places but did not linger too long and after a hellish queue to see the Scottish crown jewels we wandered off again.

El had really seized up by now so we decided to see if we could find an early train back to London. We were booked on the overnight sleeper with El going straight to the office the next day, but that was not going to be a good option and thankfully we were able to get seats on an earlier train.
One of the main reasons we were going to Edinburgh was to meet my friend Alex and his partner who were here from NZ as part of a larger trip. We had arranged to meet them for dinner that night, but really sadly I had to cancel it and head home.

I (we) really enjoyed Edinburgh, it is a cool little city and one I am already looking forward to re-visiting!