Closes, close to the Castle

We dressed in our warm clothes, long sleeves shirts and wool sweaters. Took the rain jackets and an umbrella we got last night. We're off to the Edinburgh castle, it's very raw, cold and windy and could rain. No city driving today, took the bus.

It's hard to tell the size of this castle from the picture, but it is very large. It sits upon a hill dominating the city, is in excellent condition and is still a working castle. We took a tour and explored all the rooms and displays. There is an impressive memorial hall for all Scottish soldiers killed in all the wars, a prisoner of war room and display, museums for each of the branches of services, cafes and of course gift stores. For 2 weeks in August, the military Tattoo festival goes on. This is a large pipe and drum festival, presentations and displays. The bleachers in the parade ground are still up. Overall, it took us about 3 hours to go through it. And the views from above are great.

Extending down from the castle is the Royal mile. Currently it's a cobblestone street of shops and some restaurants. Lots of tartan stores, kilt makers, some bars/pubs, castle or Scotland souvenoirs. We walked most of it, I bought a lambswool, tartan neck scarf, Bill got some whisky with honey (yummm, good) and other items.

 The stores and building are very old and historic and connecting all the major streets, are closes (Scottish for alley). Most are passable and there are business off these close. One tour company takes you to Mary King's close. These alleys thrived back in the 1500-late 1800. People had their "homes"  and businesses off these alleys, usually just a large room, no facilities of any kind and stacked about 10 stories high. Medieval living at its best. Then the plague comes along and pretty much wipes out everyone. The few that survived became "foul clengers", or body removers. So called doctors also came and treated you by lancing the pustules, then cauterizing the gaping hole. I'll save you the rest of the gory details.  Still, it was a fascinating underground tour.

In the mid 1800's, the city decided to build their offices on top of the houses of the close. They then removed half of the building, from the top down, used the bottom half for the base structure and built on top. Nice huh. So today, you can go underground to see the remains of the bottom half of these houses/rooms. You get the history, the plague lessons and see life as it was then. It wasn't prettty.

What is that word?

So that pretty much filled our day. To finish, we ate at a pub called Deacon Brodies. He was the inspiration for the Dr. Jekyll Mr Hyde character, basically went around chopping up people. Food and beer were good and we were pooped when we got "home".