My last visit of this trip was to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.
This world-renowned city has had many names through the years. It's long been reputed as the Athens of the North, partly for the architecture but just as much for the city's immense attention to and reverence for its poets, painters, scholars, thinkers, and writers. It's true. The number of statues of famous philosophers, academics, and authors nearly exceeds the number of military monuments.
Less reverently, Edinburgh was historically known as "Auld Reekie" in colloquial Scots English, a distinct language. Auld Reekie translates as "Old Smoky," and referred to the pall of haze and soot which used to settle over the city as the smoke from coal fires mingled with the damp sea air from the Firth of Forth. You can still see the evidence of the Auld Reekie days on buildings which are awaiting their turn for a good thorough clean with pressure washers.That's a lengthy, arduous process.
I chose to end my travels in Edinburgh for one simple reason: it's now possible to fly nonstop from Edinburgh to Toronto, and that was the route I chose for my trip home. Spacious, smooth-running, efficient -- I could just about write an entire blog post about the advantages of Edinburgh's airport, and of flying direct out of Edinburgh, versus travelling by way of London. Suffice it to say that the elapsed time from my hotel room on the airport property through check-in and security to my boarding gate was just 35 minutes -- and that even allowed for an extended spell of browsing the enormous collection of single malt whiskies in the huge duty-free store.
Nor should I sell the hotel short (the Hampton Inn Edinburgh Airport) -- this place is not only modern and comfortable, but knows exactly what needs to happen to make an airport hotel practical. They serve the full hot breakfast from 0430 every morning, and the bar is open and pouring 24/7!
But we're here to talk about the city -- perhaps, more accurately, the cities. Edinburgh has several distinct personalities, depending on which area you happen to be in.
I began my visiting in the New Town and West End area, which was designed and built, pretty much all in a piece, after a design competition held in 1766. The precise, neat geometric street plan of the New Town contrasts with the meandering layout of much of the rest of the city. So does the uniformity of design in the height of neo-classical Georgian architecture, with all buildings generally conforming to the standard height and standard architectural style.
So unified is the style, in fact, that when you come across a building which doesn't fit the mould, like this restaurant/bar, it really sticks out like a sore thumb. The name gave me a good chuckle too.
The gently curving houses of Shandwick Place in the West End give a good example of the several circular or oval open plazas found in the new town, with a green park in the centre of each. In most cases, these parks remain private and locked, for the use of the residents of the square or circle. Shandwick Place is rather different, since the main street of the neighbourhood runs right through the central green oval, as does the relatively new Edinburgh Tram line. The West End tram station is in the middle of the oval.
Farther north, Moray Place gives the game away. Although it appears on the map to be a circle, a careful examination of the buildings -- and the street curbs -- soon tells us that it's actually a polygon with many sides. I think I counted sixteen distinct sides, or perhaps it was eighteen.
Melville Street, a couple of blocks north of Shandwick Place, gives a great example of another habit of the New Town design -- the placing of a significant public building or monument in a prominent location at the head of the street. In this case, it's St. Mary's, the imposing Edinburgh Cathedral of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
The most famous square in the New Town is Charlotte Square, named by the Town Council (like many of the streets and squares) in honour of a member of the Hanoverian royal family, in this case George III's Queen. Loyalty to the Crown was an important cause of the times, not least because it was still less than half a century since the Acts of Union in the English and Scottish Parliaments had fused the two countries into a single unit, known then and ever since as the United Kingdom. In Charlotte Square, the famous Georgian house closes the entire north side of the square in a single, symmetrical, harmonious design, a perfect visual metaphor for the ideals of political unity and of the Scottish Enlightenment of that same time period.
Take a close look at the dappled shadows of the leaves of trees in the central park. That white circle with arrows curling around it is actually a roundabout, of a kind that's very common in smaller intersections throughout England and Scotland.
And speaking of harmonious design, there's this lovely decorative element incorporated into the iron gates of the private central park in Charlotte Square.
Right from the get-go, the New Town became a fashionable neighbourhood for the well-to-do and well-educated. Many other parts of Edinburgh were no such thing, and often found large numbers of people living in squalid tenement conditions. Times change, and some of the former tenements are now among the most fashionable addresses in the city. One unique example, just to the northwest of the New Town, is found in the deep valley of a small stream called the Water of Leith, on the northern edge of the West End. Welcome to Dean Village.
You get your first glimpse of Dean Village from the Dean Bridge which carries Queensferry Road across the valley.
After enjoying the view, go back to the south end of the bridge and turn down a narrow, twisting, cobbled street called Bells Brae. Watch out for cars! This road is open to car traffic, but only a born bloody fool (or someone who actually lives there) would try to take a car down into the steep, narrow, cobbled streets of Dean Village!
Plainly, the buildings here are much older, and don't conform at all to the eye-pleasing visual characteristics of the New Town. Several of these buildings were actually mills of one sort or other, using the water power of the Water of Leith as it flows downhill towards the Firth of Forth.
If you follow the Water of Leith downstream from the village, you will find yourself walking past this castle-like house and then passing downhill under Dean Bridge and onto a pleasant walking path through the green forest along the valley. It's a quiet, restful break from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Presently, you'll come to this neo-classical rotunda enclosing a natural spring known as St. Brendan's Well.
Of course, if you want to continue your exploration of the city, sooner or later you will have to climb back up out of the valley. The grades on Gloucester Street and Doune Terrace were among the steepest I'd had to climb in the entire trip. But going back up Bells Brae would have been just as challenging.
The south side of the New Town is marked by Princes Street. This has to be one of the most unusual main streets of the world -- all stores and businesses on one side and all green gardens and parkland on the other. The Princes Street Gardens alone will provide ample opportunities for walking amid trees and flower beds. Much of the retail sector along Princes Street is dominated by major retail brands, both national and international.
The south side consists of the beautiful Princes Street Gardens. Here are a few samples of spring flowers in vibrant colours. I don't use any special tricks or filters, I just point and shoot -- and my camera automatically selects the close-up setting.
The Gardens are also a splendid solution to a perennial eyesore of modern industrial cities. The high hedges on the south side hide the deep cutting holding the railway tracks and platforms of Edinburgh's main railway station, Waverly Station.
Up on Princes Street nearby was a uniquely colourful piper. Pipers are practically a dime a dozen in Edinburgh, but this one took the visual aspect of the art in a direction I'd never seen before. Bravo!
He was standing on the corner of a street called by the curious name of "The Mound." It's actually a perfectly meaningful name. The street runs uphill on an artificial embankment to climb up onto the north face of the Castle Hill. The photo at the head of the blog post was taken partway up the hill and looking back at the New Town. Here it is again.
The two Grecian-style buildings are the National Gallery and the National Academy, two of the most significant museums of Scottish art and indeed of art generally. The tall black neo-Gothic spire to the right is not a church, but the memorial of the famed Scottish novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott. Here are a couple more photos of the Scott monument from other angles.
The ornate, imposing clock tower nearby crowns the luxurious Balmoral Hotel. When it was first opened in 1902, it was called the North British Hotel, and was the creation of the North British Railway Company, the principal railway operating between London and Edinburgh. It stands directly adjacent to Waverly Station, at the east end of Princes Street.
The area around Haymarket station marks the far western end of the New Town and West End as a single unit. This area has a number of hotels at various price points. Since virtually every train leaving Edinburgh for west or north stops at Haymarket, it's a great transport location if you want to use Edinburgh as a touring base by rail. Note on the name: it's not the only street with a name like that. There are also streets in the city called Grassmarket and Lawnmarket. And what about the street called Cowgate? Seriously.
This post is already getting out of control so I'm going to split it in two. More about the historic Old Town and Castle Hill will appear in the next post.
To wrap up, here is a very useful map which shows the areas covered by the different names. Although not mentioned on the map itself, the green represents parks and gardens, while the northern part of the orange area is Dean Village, on either side of the Water of Leith.
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