John Knox House and Princess Gardens

 

John Knox House

The group left this morning for York. We stayed to catch our flight home tomorrow. I went to the John Knox House where he stayed late in his life. It was also the home of Mary Queen of Scots goldsmith. The founder of the Presbyterian Church, he was a great speaker who had convincing arguments against the Catholic church and for the people reading the Bible.

Ceiling in the Oak Room of the House

In the afternoon, I revisited the Princess gardens, but they were difficult to navigate with the preparations for the arts festival closing some of the walking paths. But the National Art Gallery had lots of lots of treasures. 

The Monarch of the Glen
by Sir Edwin Landseer

How was the trip? We went to all sorts of British islands and found out how their lives are changing with the decline of agriculture and oil, while wind power is rising. Seeing the diversification required to make it as a farmer was especially interesting. The stories of the troubles in Belfast and the Edinburgh Tattoo were the highlights of the trip. As usual we also enjoyed our fellow passengers and Rosie, our guide. Of course, it was a disappointment to catch Covid-19 in Edinburgh, but that is how life goes. We made it safely home and Mary was feeling much better several days later.

A video of this trip is available on youtube. 

Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Military Tattoo

 

Holyrood Palace

I toured Holyrood Palace, the home of Scottish Royalty since in 1503.  Next to the old section of the Palace is its ruined abbey. This is the Scottish home of Queen Elizabeth II and there were special exhibits celebrating her platinum Jubilee, 70 years. She is also the Colonel in Chief for four Scottish Regiments and was crowned as the Scottish Queen in 1953. Charles II completed the Palace plan in 1671. The tour takes you through the public rooms, each meant to impress visitors until you reach the monarch’s bedroom. Along the way, are important portraits of the Stuart Kings and Queens. The Great Hall is where most of the state occasions are held, it is filled with portraits of ancient kings all with the nose of Charles II to convince the people that he was of royal blood. We continued to Mary, Queen of Scots bedchamber where she had discussions with John Knox about Catholicism versus the Reformation. Here her private secretary was murdered by her husband. Eventually, Mary fled to Elizabeth in London where she was jailed for 20 years before execution. Her son, James VI also became James II of England.

Portraits of the Kings in the Great Hall

After touring the Palace, I climbed Calton Hill home of the Nelson Monument, the unfinished War Memorial, and the city observatory. From here you can see from the bridge over the Forth to the North Sea and most of the central city. From the hill, I dropped into Princess Street in New Town filled with people. The Sir Walter Scott Memorial is here as well as the Princess Street Gardens which are far below the Castle.

Queen's Platinum Anniversary in the Gardens

That night I attended the Edinburgh Tattoo. We had timed this entire trip so that we would be able to attend the tattoo. Unfortunately Mary was too weak to walk to the show. Wow! I heard it was spectacular and so it was. It started with a simple beat on a tub and grew to all the pipe bands blowing us away. Then we had 5 to 10 minute performances from various countries: the US Army band, the US Air Force drill team, Scottish highland dancers, the Top Secret Drum Corp, New Zealand Army Corp, the Highland Divas, and Banda Monumental de Mexico. The final performance was with everyone in a grand spectacular with fireworks. Throughout they used light effects on the castle to create different atmospheres. What a show!

Edinburg Castle

Edinburgh Castle from Princess Street Gardens

Our hotel, the Jury’s Inn, Edinburgh is just off the Royal Mile, the road following the ridgeline of this old volcano from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle. This is the traditional processional route of monarchs. Around the castle are steep cliffs leaving only this road to be defended. This led to crowded housing along the mile, almost all the buildings are 3 to 14 stories high. The rich would live on the top floors with the poor below them. Five water wells provided clean water. Along the mile are small closes, pedestrian passageways, from the lower areas to the mile. Down anchor close was the print shop for the Britannica Encyclopedia. Across a former loch (lake) from the Old Town is New Town built in the 1760s. The loch was a sewer pit and was drained even before the bridges from old to new town were completed.

St. Giles Cathedral

Our first stop was St. Giles Cathedral with its crown steeple modeled after the Scottish crown. Outside is a Mercat Cross where the market used to be. Originally a Catholic church, after the Reformation it was separated into five churches. Inside is the grave of John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian Church and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle was originally built by Robert Bruce, who united Scotland and later improved by William Wallace. As we walked to the castle we passed through the venue where the Edinburgh Tattoo will occur beginning tomorrow. We climbed within the castle to reach the top. Here are several structures: the Royal Apartments which hold the Scottish Crown Jewels, where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI, the Banquet Hall, the church which is now a war memorial, and St Margaret’s Chapel, Edinburg’s oldest building. You can see most of the town from here.

In the afternoon I visited the Scottish Museum focusing on the Scottish history portion. Here were some more of the Lewis chessmen and the ceremonial bowl used during the coronation of Robert the Bruce. The museum features sections on natural history, new technology, and Scottish Industry as well.

Bowl from Robert the Bruce's Coronation

Nearby is Greyfriars Kirk and Graveyard. Here are numerous graves from the 17^th century to present times, including Greyfriars Bobby, a dog who guarded the grave of his owner for 14 years. Here too is the grave of Tom Riddle, which inspired J.K. Rawlings to write Harry Potter as well as graves with names of several other characters.

Grave of Greyfriar's Bobby

Mary had struggled through the morning on the climb to the castle. She tested positive for covid, so we began to make plans to return home. It wasn’t until the next afternoon that we had confirmed seats home.

St. Andrew's Scotland

 

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club

We left Aberdeen and followed the North Sea. We passed lots of fields of potatoes and turnips as well as wheat, barley, and oats. Most of Scotland is owned by 20 families with farmers renting the land. Just before reaching St Andrews, we started seeing soft fruits of strawberries and raspberries. St. Andrew is a town of 17,000 about half of them students at St. Andrews University. We started at the old course, where they were just taking down the stands from the 150^th British Open. The old course is not the oldest golf course, but the Royal and Ancient Golf Club
is where the rule making body meets.

St. Andrew's Cathedral

St. Andrews Cathedral was built beginning in 1159 to hold the relics of the Saint. It was the largest cathedral in Scotland with six spires, but the cathedral was abandoned during the protestant revolution and began the path to ruin. Many of the stones were used in other buildings. It still makes for an impressive sight. St. Andrews is known for the most murders for reason of faith in the UK.

St. Andrews Cathedral

We visited Salvator Court, one of the colleges of the University. The University is the third oldest founded in 1413. It was founded here because this was the seat of the largest bishopric Scotland. We went on to see St. Andrew’s Castle, which changed hands between the Scots and English numerous times until blown up by the Scots.

After lunch, we continued to Edinburgh.

Aberdeen, Scotland

King's Chapel with Crown Tower

 

Sadly, we left the Corinthian this morning and had a brief tour of the city. It was our guides first tour ever. She had obviously studied her history and walked the tour, but her delivery was haphazard. She was a student at the University of Aberdeen and that’s where we started. Fifth oldest of the UK university, it started as Kings college founded in 1495. We visited the Kings Chapel with the Crown Tower above.  Inscribed on the wooden walls are the 524 graduates who died in the World Wars. Outside is a memorial to Bishop Alphanson founder of the College.

House in Fittie 

We walked through the fishing village of Fittie, built in the 19^th century. The history of Aberdeen is one of fishing, whaling, ship building and now oil platforms. What was once houses for the fishermen or large ship building yards, are now filled with oil tanks. The most famous ship built here was the clipper ship Thermopylae, which set speed records 63 days sailing between London and Australia, the Cutty Sark was her primary rival. In the center of the city are many granite buildings like Marischal College which joined Kings College to create the University.

Oil Platform being serviced

We finished our tour at 11, but rooms would not be available until 3. Some of us went to a local pub in a former bank for lunch. There were also pubs in former churches nearby. I went on to the Maritime Museum, it told the story of the town. Others visited the modern art museum. Tonight is the farewell dinner of the trip.

Model of Thermopylae in Maritime Museum

Day in the Life in the Orkneys

 

We visited the seventh-generation farm of Robby and Eileen. Our guide was Margaret who has lived most of her life on Sandy Island which has a population of 500. She had to attend boarding school for high school, returning home for weekends. She quickly learned to manage her money and wash clothes. She learned to drive at 12 and was teaching others at 14. Covid has had a lot of folks return to the island. There is almost no crime and now it is easier to work remotely.

Straw and String Basket

Orkney is known for its straw chairs, made from oat straw dried in large piles. With few trees, anything of wood is made from driftwood. We were shown numerous items that are handcrafted from string and straw.

Robby explain farming in Orkney

We toured the farm with about 100 sheep and 60 cows. The Texel sheep lamb in March are sheered the next Spring and sold for lamb chops in October at about 18 months.

The beef cows only graze outside between May and October. We visited their barns with slots in the floor for collecting the manure, the sludge is used to fertilize the fields.

Texel Sheep and Windmills

The farm has a 5 kwh windmill which cost 30k pounds to install, but they sold enough electricity from it to pay it off in 5 years besides providing the farm’s electricity. We could see larger windmills on the horizon which cost 850K to install, but pay back at 1K per day. The cost of electricity has risen sharply on the islands in the past few years. Just like us, there seems to be a lot of politicking about the fixed versus variable costs of electricity.

We walked to the bird blind above the farm, hoping to see Hen Harriet’s who eat the Orkney voles, no such luck.

There was quite a discussion of whether Scotland should secede from Great Britain. In Orkney they are worried about what will happen without the EU farm subsidies which may disappear in 2024. I heard a lot of distrust with politicians whether from Windsor (Great Britain) or Edinburgh (Scotland), no one considers the needs of the outlying Islands. The North Sea oil jobs are declining, but jobs for wind power are increasing with a future possible in tidal power. Since Covid more software development companies are coming to the island. With the low crime rates and country living, people are moving here from urban Scotland.