Nothing to set the world right like 12 hours of sleep. Today's plan was Edinburgh castle! We were up at 9, arrived at the gates when they opened around 9:45am, and walked right in before the official 10 am changing of the guards ceremony. We watched from above while they closed the gates for the spectacle (which mostly consists of walking back and forth in manner which is only more funny when armed with assault rifles), meaning we had a near-private castle for as long as we could stay ahead of the crowds. So we headed straight towards the top, enjoying the lead while we had it. At the peak of the castle is St Margaret's chapel, built in the 1100s and with the small size and simplicity that comes with that age. After seeing that, we spiraled back down the castle against growing crowds.
[My notes here are bulletpoints, so I'll do my best to retcon this into readability.]
•Massive cannon - 28lb stones 2 miles - exploded - made with rods and rings
[Mons Meg is a massive 15th century siege cannon, and is right outside the doors to St Margaret's. As a fabrication nerd, I was fascinated by it's construction - it's fully wrought iron. They are barely figuring out how to forge pieces large enough to make a musket at this time, let alone a beast capable of firing 300lb stones over 2 miles. They circumvented this limitation by building what are essentially nested barrels of iron rods, wrapped in forged hoops. Two hundred years later it had been retired to ceremonial use, where it eventually exploded. Hugely embarrassing, but it didn't kill anyone - which I assume is because they were all terrified to stand close after lighting the wick]
•The crown jewels - big cordons but no lines, win. Sword, Scepter, and Crown. That's all of them.
[Having seen the English Crown Jewels (I need to digitize my paper journals some day), we were excited to see the Scottish Crown Jewels, especially if we could skip what was clearly expected to be a long queue. There was a very strong start, and I was excited to see what was in the next room. It was a gift shop. They only have three things - four if you count the modern replacement sword (kinda crass IMO, but the old sword is too fragile for even ceremonial use)]
•The old part of the castle - down underneath. 14th century and looks it, would have loved a chance to go wander the depths but that was clearly off limits. The black supper - precursor to the red wedding - they served a bulls head which was the symbol for someone's gonna die - then they killed the two heirs to the rivals family on the suspicion that maybe they might do something traitorous some day. They also buried the royal sword here during ww2. reword sexier [10/10 no notes]
•War memorial - records for all the deaths from various wars, an art-nouveau temple to the warriors who died while also praying for peace. Make poetical. No pictures except this one I got yelled at for.
[Scotland is fascinating because all of the war memorials are from WW1, with WW2 shoehorned in as an awkward addition - but they still painstakingly include every single name, which I respect. Also, when I fact-checked the architecture, I was totally wrong: It's has the classic curves of gothic-revival with a bit of geometric art-deco sneaking in. Art Nouveau was a very swishy reaction inbetween these two that I just assumed was stylistically between these two, but very much isn't]
•Great hall - which Cromwell made 3level barracks for 300 men - painting of the stealing of the colors at waterloo.
[Did you ever design a grand ornate ballroom and later somebody came by and said "I can fit so many bunkbeds in here"? Me neither, but Cromwell was a man on a mission]
•Prisons - Very cool recreation of how the prisons would have looked in the 1700s, with hammocks, darkness, and poor conditions. Looked far better than the 1800's solitary confinement wing. There was a hole where the prisoners escaped! 47 went out the hole, 1 fell to their death, and 46 were later captured FACT CHECK. [This was a tricky fact check. The night of April 12th, 1811 ~49 French prisoners climbed out of a hole they chiseled through the wall. At least one, and probably only one, plummeted to their death. Almost all of them were provably recaptured and there are no reports of any who got away, but propaganda isn't a new concept. And then the British made up a riddle about the event to flaunt their success, and contaminated search results for the rest of time.]
•So many museums. Dragoon museum (where we saw the colors that were stolen at waterloo! They love talking about waterloo). [accurate]
Coming out of the dragoon museum, there were hundreds of people, all lined up and looking at the gun platform. The guns are fired at 1pm so that (historically), boats in the harbor could set their clocks. But this was noon. And all three guns saluted in running fire, repeatedly, and it was a fun time. Turns out today is 3 years from the death of QE2, so this was the celebration of the "Third Accession" of KC3.
A few more views, another museum which we speed-ran (as much as mom can speed-run a museum). There was a display all about a Scottish standard-bearer who was shot dead, but still refused to let go of the colors (as opposed to that poofy frog whose flag is now in this very castle). So his mate carried his body, flag and all, back to the lines - and this inspired the French so much they temporarily ceased firing to allow the body free passage. They love their Waterloo. We wrapped up the museum just before 1pm, so of course we had to wait for cannon again. As opposed to the previous ceremony, there were no crowds, no ceremony, just one dude who formally checked his watch and BAM. The handful of us on a much closer parapet - fully knowing what was coming - all jumped out of our skin. [Classic joke about Scotland: "Why do the Edinburgh Guns fire one shot at 1pm?" "They can't afford noon"]
Lunch was back at our bnb, only a few blocks away, where we had leftovers and the groceries we picked up yesterday. My parents headed out for a church-tour, I snuck in a 20 minute nap, and then the younger generation took the youngest generation (just Ada at this point) down to the park! Dowwwwwn to the park. The playground was at the base of castle-mount, which was pretty cool.
We hiked back up (seems shorter without suitcases, but just as steep) and met with the parents so we could finish the Rick Steves Royal Mile tour. My mom is a little neurotic about checking off the Rick Steves lists, and we were happy to humor her. Highlights included the spot of the last public execution in Scotland, various historic wells, and the gravesite of John Knox - which is not parking spot 23 of the parliament building, aka the only spot with people randomly standing on it.
Then, dinner time! Ethan and Hannah picked out a fish and chips place - THE fish and chips place. It was massive, but we had plenty of room and a decent view of historic buildings, and we had lots of fish and lots of chips, and all traded various fishes amongst one another.
Then the baby-crew went off to bed, and my parents and I did some wandering about (very cute alleys, allegedly the inspiration for diagon alley - a rumor which a few magical-themed shops were pushing pretty hard). Yet another hike up a bunch of stairs, and back again for another early night.
12k steps
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