Edinburgh's Royal Mile

The next several days the weather cleared and I'd bet it was just about as nice out as it gets in southern Scotland in early April. We had settled in by now and we were really enjoying poking around in the hidden nooks and crannies that make up Edinburgh's Old Town.

The view from the front door of our apartment building

The Wee Palace turned out to be the perfect place to explore the city from. You could just step out the front door of the apartment building and you were in the center of the old city. Edinburgh topography is quite varied and because of this they built in numerous ways to get from one point to another including steep stairwells, alleyways and cobbled paths.

Steep "Closes" or alleyways run in all directions off Edinburgh's main thoroughfares. Each one is named and they all are a little different and ooze (sometimes literally) with history

Edinburg is one of the most fascinating cities we've ever visited and one our favorite things to do was to wander aimlessly and just see where each avenue lead us. It feels VERY medieval and in many places you can tell things haven't changed that much in four or five hundred years.

Victoria Street leading up from the Grassmarket square to the Royal Mile

Today we wanted to walk the Royal Mile that starts at Edinburgh Castle and runs down High Street all the way to the bottom of the hill at Holyrood Palace. The Royal Mile is gently sloping  with an elevation change of just under 250 feet.

The sun was out as we made our way up towards the castle from the Grassmarket and after a fairly steep climb we began our walk down the famous route. Highly recommend going from the top to the bottom!

The large parade grounds just in front of the castle entrance. That's Arthur's Seat looming in the background.

We were saving visiting the castle for Monday. Today being Sunday the crowds were already beginning to build and we wanted to wait for a day when it might not be as crowded and since we had eleven days to explore the city we could pick and choose when we wanted to see things which is very freeing and allows you to spend more time just going with the flow instead of feeling like you have to take in all of the major sites one after another.

Edinburgh from castle rock (The Craig the castle is built on)

A medieval water trough turned into a planter at the beginning of the Royal Mile. I (Jerani) just love this. I really want one!

Heading down High Street on the Royal Mile

We set off down the Royal Mile, stopping from time to time to look through one of the many shops that line each side of High Street. The architecture was grand and the idea that this road had been in use in some form or another since the 12th Century is amazing. In all actuality there have been military strongholds on Castle Rock for over three thousand years given it's intimidating natural defensive position. Such history!

18th Century Church named the Tron Kirk

 We continued past the Tron Kirk and made our way further down the street towards Canongate.

We were getting hungry and so we decided to try one of Edinburgh's more unusual dining establishments, "Oink".

Oink celebrates pork as you may have surmised. Each day the two Oink shops in Edinburgh bring in one entire fully roasted hog each from their very own Scottish Border farms. Oink treats it's customers to a simple menu that concentrates on highlighting their quality ingredients.

They serve freshly carved hog roast (pulled pork), served on a white or brown roll with a choice of sage & onion stuffing, apple sauce, chilli relish or haggis. As for ‘Crackling’ for true lovers you simply just need to ask for a piece crispy crackling (but hurry as it does not last long!)

The sandwiches are REALLY good by the way! We chose the pulled pork pared with sage & onion stuffing and a hefty piece of crackling! Porkalicious!!!

After our piglet sandwiches we continued down the Royal Mile marveling at some of the ornate buildings we passed.

There are the coolest things perched around. So fun to see!

We ran across a piper and the haunting sounds of the bagpipe echoing off the ancient buildings were so utterly Scottish.

We walked through an ancient cemetery behind a little church as we neared the bottom of the Royal Mile.

 

As we neared the bottom of the hill you could see Holyrood, Scotland's royal palace and the ultra modern Scottish Parliament building up ahead.

Scotland's innovative (you love it or hate it) designed Parliament building is quite a contrast to the rest of the venerable old buildings of Edinburgh. I think we have got to cast a vote in the latter category. 

There was a lot of security as we neared Holyrood Palace

 The Royal Palace is at the very bottom of the Royal Mile and boasts magnificent views or Arthur's Seat and the surrounding countryside. We peeked at it through the wrought iron fence as we were too cheap to pay the entrance fee. (Hey, you have to pick and choose.)

The amount of detail they have in almost everything they built in the past is unbelievable. This stag decorated just one of dozens of iron gates that opened up onto the Holyrood grounds. It's sad that we no longer put the type of effort into making things special; I'm not even sure we could.

We wandered through some of the grounds and came upon a wonderfully fairy tale like stone cottage.

After leaving the Royal Mile we felt pretty spry and decided to continue walking home on the "New" side of Edinburgh.

This would entail a small rise in elevation to access the streets running back into town but as luck would have it an amazing classic cemetery built up above Holyrood Palace climbed a hillside towards the upper road.

 By now you can see we have a inclination towards old graveyards so what could be a better route?

Holyrood Palace with the path leading up to Arthur's Seat in the background

There's a plaque on this stone tower saying that this was both the birthplace and the resting place of a man that was responsible for Caretaking the cemetery for forty years. He was actually born in the stone tower and 78 years later was interned there. Wow, I guess he didn't get out much.

 We exited the cemetery and came upon another monument just at the upper entrance.

Once we reached the upper road we followed it towards the city center passing several monuments and yes, another graveyard.

Spooky stuff

We passed by the old Scottish Parliament building and walked towards the Sir Walter Scott monument in Edinburgh's New Town. It is the largest monument ever created for an author and the Flamboyant Victorian Gothic style makes for a pretty impressive statement.

We wanted to sit for a spell so we found a bench and ordered a crepe from a little stand remembering fondly how good the one we purchased in Knotting Hill was. BAD decision! WORST CREPE EVER MADE!!! Gluey, gooey yuck with strawberries. We tossed the crepe and ate the six strawberry quarters and remembered that you can never relive the thrill. We never ordered another crepe in the entire trip.

Dang stairs. They are everywhere. We're glad we didn't wait until we were older because all this sightseeing is so physical.

 About nine hundred steps and six alleyways later we arrived back home to our lovely apartment after a successful day of quality sightseeing. Hurray, NO BUSES!!!