When I changed my trip to include the UK - specifically to head up to Lincoln to hang out with Brian - he suggested that we take a day and go to Edinburgh. That sounded like a lovely way to spend some time, so he booked our travel and hotel, and after four days of lounging around, we hopped an early train north.
On the train, we met a lovely young couple on their way up for a weekend in Edinburgh. The young man had spent a few Chirstmases up there with his family going to the Christmas Market and was looking forward to going up again. I looked at Brian. He shrugged. He'd not known anything about a Christmas Market, but now we were both interested in checking this thing out.
The train arrived on time with no issues (yay!), and we trudged through a couple of "closes" (very narrow alleyways for pedestrians, generally with a crapton of stairs) to the hotel, dropped our bags off, and then headed up to the castle. Yes, there was a Christmas Market, but that would simply have to wait. There was a castle to explore!
Edinburgh Castle was first laid out 2000 years ago by digging into a mountain of black lava rock and building a wooden fortification on the top of it. Over the years - and variable governments - new, better, more intimidating buildings were built as a message to others to avoid stopping by without an invitation. Without question, this was a brilliant plan, as one look up at the mountain from below pretty much says, "Keep out!"
In our case, however, we paid 20 quid each for the privilege of an invitation, so we happily wandered around the multi-level, multi-building space. One of these buildings housed a large military museum that showed the various ways that Scottish men and women contributed to or abetted wars in and for the UK since the 18th century. (For whatever reason, other than a nominal display on the Jacobean Rebellion and the room where James VI & I was born, almost nothing at the castle referenced Scottish history prior to 1725 CE.) I admit that I struggled with this museum. Yes, some wars are necessary, but I've never appreciated celebrating them. I tried to explain to Brian that my issue stems from the idea that men have forever felt a need to "die like my father did" or to prove themselves as their fathers or grandfathers have done, which has inevitably resulted in more wars.
We left the military museum and climbed up to the Grand Hall where a musician was keying up to play on his lute. While he tuned his lute - and the audience - he spewed really bad history, and after my third rolling of the eyes, Brian asked if I wanted to leave. Yes, please. (And for the record - and those at the back of the room - water was perfectly fine to drink throughout history with few exceptions. *grumbles*) We then explored the King James VI & I halls, including where he was born, and where the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone were kept.
In some spaces, we were asked not to take pictures (like in the Scottish Crown Jewels room), and in others, I chose not to take pictures as I struggled with the contents of the rooms (like the military displays). As such, you'll note that a lot of my pictures here were more about the buildings outside and the surrounding views.
One building, however, held me enthralled, and I took a number of photos there of the stained glass windows. (It was only later that I found out that the windows were created in the 1920s.) This was the chapel dedicated to Saint Margaret, a Scottish Queen from the 12th century. The room was small, no more than eight feet by 12 feet, with a cordoned-off apse at the front. The aforementioned stained glass windows told the stories of several legendary citizens of Scotland, including Wallace (which should have tipped me off on their ages, but sometimes I'm slow). It was a sweet chapel for a woman who birthed three kings of Scotland and one queen of England.
Once we'd hit all of the major points of the castle, we wandered down to the Christmas Market to see what we would see. This wasn't a Christmas Market like any I'd seen before.
First, there were carnival rides. Second, there was no Christmas music anywhere in the space. And finally, the only Christmas trees that I remember seeing were in the Christmas Tree maze. Still, I loved it. It was vibrant and fun. There were delightful shops selling all the usual things like ornaments, kitcshy doodads, illuminated candle holders, etc. Of course, as we were in Scotland, there were also a bunch of wool items everywhere in a variety of plaids or other brilliant patterns in bright colors.
This was billed as a German Christmas Market, so the food tended toward German, like sausages, kassel, and pretzels. There were also a myriad of crepe/waffle stands, and mac & cheese. The vegan mac & cheese place in particular was fantastic. (Yeah, I know. I was surprised, too.)
The market spanned multiple levels that we walked a few times, then we wandered off to see the castle from below the hill at night. Brian and I took turns taking pictures, and then playing with our filters to get different effects. A lot of the pictures we came up with were beautiful, evocative, and at times, downright creepy.
I really enjoyed playing around with photography with Brian. He, like me, loves to play with angles and shadows to see what will come of the shot. Comparing pictures became a bit of a competition for us; one that we both won, I think.
The next morning, we got up early, checked out of the hotel, and walked out to the cemetery that I'd taken pictures of from the castle.
I have a thing for cemeteries, the older the better. I love trying to come up with stories about the grand tombstones one finds in these old, often abandoned places of rest, where entire families are laid out with dates and ages of their deaths. Morbid, yes. A great exercise in imagination and storytelling? Absolutely.
From the cemetery, we headed towards the National Museum of Scotland, a lovely compact art museum free and open to the public. (We got distracted by a monument in the middle of the road that appeared off in the distance. So, we walked over to it and, despite Brian's objections, down the hill a bit beyond it, before turning around and going back to the art museum.)
Once back on track, we found a delightful museum organized by dates, with a number of prominent Scottish painters highlighted. There were also two Rembrandt pen-and-ink drawings on display, which I found fascinating. (No pics of that, sorry. I was distracted and pulled away before I thought about it.) Another painting kind of threw me for a loop, so I took a couple of pictures to get input from my late-period costuming friends.
There was, as seems to be a theme, a Cranach painting.
As well as a beautiful set of paintings of the goddess Diana.
After the museum, we had a bit of time left, so we walked a little down a path where we found a fountain that Brian absolutely hated, calling it garish, and that I thought was adorable.
From there, we went to a pub across from the train station to relax before catching a train to our next stop: Preston.
On the train, we met a lovely young couple on their way up for a weekend in Edinburgh. The young man had spent a few Chirstmases up there with his family going to the Christmas Market and was looking forward to going up again. I looked at Brian. He shrugged. He'd not known anything about a Christmas Market, but now we were both interested in checking this thing out.
The train arrived on time with no issues (yay!), and we trudged through a couple of "closes" (very narrow alleyways for pedestrians, generally with a crapton of stairs) to the hotel, dropped our bags off, and then headed up to the castle. Yes, there was a Christmas Market, but that would simply have to wait. There was a castle to explore!
Edinburgh Castle was first laid out 2000 years ago by digging into a mountain of black lava rock and building a wooden fortification on the top of it. Over the years - and variable governments - new, better, more intimidating buildings were built as a message to others to avoid stopping by without an invitation. Without question, this was a brilliant plan, as one look up at the mountain from below pretty much says, "Keep out!"
In our case, however, we paid 20 quid each for the privilege of an invitation, so we happily wandered around the multi-level, multi-building space. One of these buildings housed a large military museum that showed the various ways that Scottish men and women contributed to or abetted wars in and for the UK since the 18th century. (For whatever reason, other than a nominal display on the Jacobean Rebellion and the room where James VI & I was born, almost nothing at the castle referenced Scottish history prior to 1725 CE.) I admit that I struggled with this museum. Yes, some wars are necessary, but I've never appreciated celebrating them. I tried to explain to Brian that my issue stems from the idea that men have forever felt a need to "die like my father did" or to prove themselves as their fathers or grandfathers have done, which has inevitably resulted in more wars.
We left the military museum and climbed up to the Grand Hall where a musician was keying up to play on his lute. While he tuned his lute - and the audience - he spewed really bad history, and after my third rolling of the eyes, Brian asked if I wanted to leave. Yes, please. (And for the record - and those at the back of the room - water was perfectly fine to drink throughout history with few exceptions. *grumbles*) We then explored the King James VI & I halls, including where he was born, and where the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Scone were kept.
In some spaces, we were asked not to take pictures (like in the Scottish Crown Jewels room), and in others, I chose not to take pictures as I struggled with the contents of the rooms (like the military displays). As such, you'll note that a lot of my pictures here were more about the buildings outside and the surrounding views.
One building, however, held me enthralled, and I took a number of photos there of the stained glass windows. (It was only later that I found out that the windows were created in the 1920s.) This was the chapel dedicated to Saint Margaret, a Scottish Queen from the 12th century. The room was small, no more than eight feet by 12 feet, with a cordoned-off apse at the front. The aforementioned stained glass windows told the stories of several legendary citizens of Scotland, including Wallace (which should have tipped me off on their ages, but sometimes I'm slow). It was a sweet chapel for a woman who birthed three kings of Scotland and one queen of England.
Once we'd hit all of the major points of the castle, we wandered down to the Christmas Market to see what we would see. This wasn't a Christmas Market like any I'd seen before.
First, there were carnival rides. Second, there was no Christmas music anywhere in the space. And finally, the only Christmas trees that I remember seeing were in the Christmas Tree maze. Still, I loved it. It was vibrant and fun. There were delightful shops selling all the usual things like ornaments, kitcshy doodads, illuminated candle holders, etc. Of course, as we were in Scotland, there were also a bunch of wool items everywhere in a variety of plaids or other brilliant patterns in bright colors.
This was billed as a German Christmas Market, so the food tended toward German, like sausages, kassel, and pretzels. There were also a myriad of crepe/waffle stands, and mac & cheese. The vegan mac & cheese place in particular was fantastic. (Yeah, I know. I was surprised, too.)
The market spanned multiple levels that we walked a few times, then we wandered off to see the castle from below the hill at night. Brian and I took turns taking pictures, and then playing with our filters to get different effects. A lot of the pictures we came up with were beautiful, evocative, and at times, downright creepy.
I really enjoyed playing around with photography with Brian. He, like me, loves to play with angles and shadows to see what will come of the shot. Comparing pictures became a bit of a competition for us; one that we both won, I think.
The next morning, we got up early, checked out of the hotel, and walked out to the cemetery that I'd taken pictures of from the castle.
I have a thing for cemeteries, the older the better. I love trying to come up with stories about the grand tombstones one finds in these old, often abandoned places of rest, where entire families are laid out with dates and ages of their deaths. Morbid, yes. A great exercise in imagination and storytelling? Absolutely.
From the cemetery, we headed towards the National Museum of Scotland, a lovely compact art museum free and open to the public. (We got distracted by a monument in the middle of the road that appeared off in the distance. So, we walked over to it and, despite Brian's objections, down the hill a bit beyond it, before turning around and going back to the art museum.)
Once back on track, we found a delightful museum organized by dates, with a number of prominent Scottish painters highlighted. There were also two Rembrandt pen-and-ink drawings on display, which I found fascinating. (No pics of that, sorry. I was distracted and pulled away before I thought about it.) Another painting kind of threw me for a loop, so I took a couple of pictures to get input from my late-period costuming friends.
There was, as seems to be a theme, a Cranach painting.
As well as a beautiful set of paintings of the goddess Diana.
After the museum, we had a bit of time left, so we walked a little down a path where we found a fountain that Brian absolutely hated, calling it garish, and that I thought was adorable.
From there, we went to a pub across from the train station to relax before catching a train to our next stop: Preston.
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