Edinburgh - Day 5

Wow, already fifth day! Time flies so fast, and before I even know it, I'll be back in Canada.

Edinburgh Castle, seen from Johnston Terrace.

Woke up at 8:00, ate a breakfast, relaxed for a few minutes, then walked towards the Edinburgh Castle. I took the audio guide, and spent the next hour and a half walking around inside the castle walls, and inside some of the buildings there. It was very pleasant. After that was done, it was around 11:30, a bit too soon to eat lunch, considering I had a pretty big breakfast.

The Castle entrance.

Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park, seen from inside the castle.

Right next to the castle, there is the Camera Obscura, a building filled with illusions and mind tricks, topped with a mirror that can be controlled from inside to look around. Most of it was mildly interesting, but there was one in particular that blew my mind. It was a corridor made to look like a small bridge around which was rotating a cylinder. That made your brain think that the bridge was falling on its side, so unless you just closed your eyes, you had to reach for the hand rail lest you just fall over. It was just crazy. Even knowing about the trick didn't help - you instantly felt dizzy and tried to fall.

Another of interest was the mirror maze (a tiny labyrinth). If you go through it carefully, it's very easy. At the entrance to the maze, there is a panel saying that you must not run inside, and they even put a fake picture of a woman with bandages over her face. While I was inside, a little girl started running, and hit a wall head-on. Her father was a bit concerned, but she was laughing. Five seconds later, she's going in the other direction, and runs directly into another mirror, harder this time. She starts crying and whines that she wants to go home.

A battered Mars bar.

That lasted about an hour, and it was time to eat lunch. I knew where I was going - The Clamshell! My coworkers from Canada had talked to me about this tiny restaurant where they deep-fry a lot of things, so I took the classic "fish n chips", a deep-fried fish (mackerel?) with fries. Actually, I went there for one thing specifically - a "battered Mars bar" (interesting article), which is actually a Mars bar, deep-fried. Yes. Let me repeat that: a Mars bar, deep-fried. Une barre Mars frite. The fish and fries were alright, in an American kind of way, but the Mars bar... Imagine a medium rare top sirloin cut from an angel. To almost quote Treebeard in The Lord of the Rings, "There are no words in French, English, or the tongues of America, for this sapidity." It was legendary, and I'll never take another one, ever.

Then I went to The Real Mary King's Close. I didn't know what to expect, but the first part was, by far, the most interesting I've seen in Edinburgh to date. To make a very long story very short, there were all these old medieval apartment houses each sides of the Royal Mile, some 8 stories high, and they decided to build a huge government building (the Royal Exchange). Because the Royal Mile is at the top of some kind of hill chain, the sides are on a slope. They destroyed the apartment levels that were higher than the Royal Mile, and built the building over the rest. That means that part of the ancient city (from the 1600s) is still down there, under the building. The tour talked a lot about what kind of life these people were living in, about the plagues, and all these things. It was fascinating!

It lasted an hour, then 20 minutes break, and then an hour-long tour around the Royal Mile, talking about some people who lived there centuries ago, and old buildings, and old history. Very interesting also.

By then, it was 16:00, and I walked further away to Princes street to buy two shirts. I had only brought two in my luggage, because I expected to be able to wear a t-shirt most of the time there, but since everyone at work was wearing a shirt, I decided I wouldn't want to get any unneeded attention. Then, I went all the way back to the hotel. Arrived at around 17:00, had dinner at the hotel later on (entrée of mushrooms, a pint of Guinness, and a chicken burger). Relaxed in my hotel room for the rest of the evening, mainly writing this post and uploading the pictures I've taken so far. I get to keep the work laptop in the evenings, so it's very useful.