Enchanted by Edinburgh

I loved Edinburgh - loved it!  It felt like walking into history, utterly and completely.  I am sure there are villages and towns across Europe where you can feel this way- I've seen pictures - but this was my first experience of stepping into history and it felt grand.  It wasn't just a building or a monument.  It was everywhere I looked - in all directions!  It slayed me.

Hazel and I awoke that morning and took a taxi (my first! I am so provincial...) to the train station and caught a 45 min ride from Motherwell to Edinburgh.  We chatted about everything and nothing - so perfect!  But when you reach Edinburgh, you step off the train, walk a few blocks and there you are - right in the middle of a gorgeous historic town.  Everywhere you look is history!!  And not just a building but the cobblestones, the streets are just as they have been for hundreds of years.  The buildings are all shops you can go into as people have been for hundreds of years - and I added myself to that throng in history.  Every threshold I stepped across held that magic for me.  Words fail me, again. 

We stayed primarily on the Royal Mile.  This cobblestone road is a hill with Edinburgh Castle perched at the top and at the bottom is Holyrood Palace.  Holyrood (meaning Holy Cross) is a royal residence but is occasionally open for tours.  It was closed when we were there but we had some tea at the Abbey Cafe right beside it.  There has been a royal residence there since the 1300's.

Edinburgh Castle



One of the best moments for me was walking up the Royal Mile towards the Castle, with a great friend in Scotland, munching on Scottish Shortbread.  It was a divinely savored moment - a perfect moment, so rare.

While walking up the Royal Mile I kept noticing the most enchanting little alleyways every so often.  They were historically entrances between the Tenement buildings and are called Closes.  They all had names that were descriptive of their history.  For example, the Advocates Close below dates from around 1544.  Some were utilitarian, some were decorated.  I didn't care, I wanted to explore every single nook and cranny of each and every one.  Each close led to a courtyard with some that were so beautiful I never wanted to leave.  Each one a "secret garden" offering a mystery to myself I desperately needed to find.  I needed to make each one mine in some way...somehow.  But, alas, I couldn't and didn't.  I need to return. 
(I just got so excited writing about the closes that I went and ordered the only book available on them.  Close Encounters of the Royal Mile. Maybe I will have to write another - after my book about fence stiles, of course.)









 



This one is utilitarian.  I love how the stones are worn.



This one decorated.

For those of you, like me, who are Diana Gabaldon Outlander fans, it is down Carfax Close in Edinburgh that Claire finds Jamie in his print shop.  This is Claire describing the Royal Mile which mimiced a lot of what I was thinking. 
"I was here.  Really here.  Edinburgh sloped up behind me, to the glowering heights of Edinburgh Castle, and down before me, to the gracious majesty of Holyrood Palace at the foot of the city....The low, dark opening of Carfax Close yawned just ahead, across the expanse of the Royal Mile.  I stopped dead, looking at it, my heart beating hard enough to be heard a yard away, had anyone been listening." [Voyager, p.253, 254]  

Carfax Close is not a close that actually exists but it could have been any of the ones I saw.  There was an interesting one called "World's End Close".  It was called that because it used to be where the city literally ended - enclosed with gates.  The gates are no longer there but in Edinburgh in the 1500's if you left the city there was a re-entrance fee.  Many were too poor to afford entrance back into the city so they never left and that was literally the end of their world.  I love that story.  It is for this reason that I wish my street of 308th Ave. were still called its original name, Cedar Ave.  It was the rough road the loggers would go up to cut cedars for the shingle mill.  Streets with only numbers lack warmth and soul.  One of my many soapboxes that I try to keep hidden deep in my closet.



This was over a door in a close.  I wanted to live here - walk under these words every day of my life.

To be continued...I haven't even gotten to the castle yet!  Apparently, even when words fail me I keep writing...Thanks for reading!