Edinburgh (doesn't rhyme with Pittsburgh)

EH-din-bur-uh

As part of the Yorkshire Management Semester we promised students a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Though I was a little concerned about going there at the end of October, given the cold, rainy, windy weather when I was there in May, it turned out to be a great trip - with temperatures in the 50s, partly cloudy, and rain only at night.  We started our tour the first day with a walk up Princes Street (much construction going on installing a new tram system), passing the Sir Walter Scott Monument (supposedly the ltallest monument to a writer anywhere in the world):

And along the Princes Street Gardens, looking across to Edinburgh's Old Town with its mult-story 16th & 17th century  buildings - some up to 20 stories high, built on a volcanic ridge between the castle and the palace.

The "New Town" on the opposite side of Princes Street was built in the late 1700s and is considered Britain's finest concenteration of Georgian architecture. The deep valley that separates Old Town from New Town now contains the train station as well as Princes Street Gardens.) There were still roses blooming in the gardens at the end of October!

(Here Jenner's department store - an iconic New Town building.)

We then walked down the Royal Mile on Old Town. Royal Mile is not an actual road, but a collection of streets going downhill from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace.  Along the way we stopped at St. Giles Cathedral, a Gothic structure dominated by a 15th century tower.

St. Giles is perhaps best known as being the base for John Knox, the great reformer and founder of Scottish Presbyterianism.  His insistence that every person should be able to read the Bible gave Scotland an educational system for its citizens 300 years ahead of the rest of Europe.  Many consider this the reason Scotland had so many leading thinkers and inventors. (Voltaire called Scotland the "intellectual capital of Europe" and Edinburgh was once known as the "Athens of the North.") I also rather liked the stained glass windows of St. Giles:

On down the Royal Mile to the new Scottish Parliament, the very modern new building complex built in the 2000s designed by a Spanish architecht. It was hard to get a good picture of the exterior (I thought it was great, but John - the art major - said it was awful and not worth a picture), but we did do a brief tour of the interior. The Scotland Act of 1998 established the first parliament in Scotland since 1707, giving Scotland power to make its own laws on a range of issues that are know as "devolved matters." The UK parliament retains responsibility for "reserved matters" such as foreign affairs, defence, immigration and social security.  It did surprise us that Scotland prints its own paper money, which can be used the same as Bank of England notes. (Sir Walter Scott makes an appearance on some of these.)

And on to Holyrood Palace - still the Queen's official residence when visiting Scotland, such as the opening of Parliament. (When I was here in May it was closed to visitors because some Duke and Duchess were staying there.)

More about Edinburgh in my next post, but at the end of our first day John and I had dinner at the Royal Cafe. Not only was the ambience great - 19th century decor with large tile depictions of famous Scottish inventors - and part of the film set for Chariots of Fire - but great mussels in wine sauce as well!