MSC Magnifica picture heavy fun review -- 12 days British Isles incl. DIY port trips

[Wriggler]

3. I can see Scotland! (well, maybe it was still England – Wriggler – I waved …did you feel it? Lol- being 4 in the morning I imagine you slept right through it)

 

Hi Stef

 

I had no idea you would be passing by at that time but I appreciate the wave!

 

Just had to explain to my colleague why I burst out laughing for no apparent reason when I saw your comment :p

 

Carol

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

The walk to the station really was a piece of cake since we had found this wonderful description on cruise critic:

“Taking the train from South Queensferry to Edinburgh”

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2031574

thank you again Tartanexile81!

Since this excellent description of the path needs no further pictures, I just want to add a map-like picture to sum it all up. Here you go:

We didn’t feel like buying our tickets at the machine, since we had heard that you can still buy them on the train…so we ignored the machine on the platform and continued on over the little pedestrian bridge to the other platform to wait for a train. Trains come regularly…Wait is between 10 minutes and half an hour, depending on when you get there. After 9:30 the tickets get cheaper. But we were there at about 8:30, so we would have to get regular return tickets…but during the entire train ride (between 15 and 20 minutes) no conductor came to sell us tickets…mhh, does that mean we rode the train for free?

Lol –

no

– it meant we got stuck on the platform at Waverly, since you needed your tickets to exit the platform through metal gates. This differs on which train you take however…our tablemates took another train and ended up on a freely accessible (and leavable) platform.

Darn, after some confusion we asked the nice people at the gates where we could buy tickets to get out of our involuntary imprisonment.

Whew, thank God there was a little hut with friendly people answering questions and selling tickets a few platforms down that we could actually get to. So we bought our three return tickets from/to Dalmeny and were finally able to exit the platforms. Up to this point all Scots we encountered were extra super nice to us although we were the dumb tourists stuck on a platform. My love for Scotland grew and grew by the minute.

Anyway, here are some pictures…

 

Our train about to pull into the station in the morning

Our tickets (lol - once we finally bought them)

A freely accessible platform on our way back in the afternoon

I just loved the logo “Flying Scotsman”. Is it just me imagining a guy in a kilt soaring through the air like superman?

On the way back to the tender stop.

One thing is for sure, you won’t be walking on this path alone, since many cruise passengers will do the same at any time during that day.

A cool spot to take an unusual picture of the Forth bridge.

But enough of transportation…let’s explore Edinburgh!

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Elmartellama]

Looking forward to read the rest of the first port day. We never had a problem with the tender tickets queue on the MSC Fantasia. The crew members were delivering tickets about 15 minutes before the scheduled time. And there was a queue that everyone followed.

 

Also, when you had to get off they made you show the tickets. Since there were so many people, maybe someone very rude could have skipped the check point by pushing others, as the crew are sometimes overwhelmed in the beginning of the process. But I'd say everyone had the tickets.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Strolling around through Edinburgh and the city in general.

Edinburgh is a Mecca for tourists. We could have easily spent a week here just to see the tourist attractions…not to mention the numerous events offered during the Fringe. The fringe festival lets the city sizzle with liveliness, culture, art, craziness, fun and enthusiasm. And of course myriads of people. They have free concerts and performances throughout the city and other events, which required a minimal fee….absolutely astonishing…the sheer amount of acts offered are breathtaking. We didn’t actively seek out any events of the Fringe though, since this was our very first visit (hopefully not the last) to Edinburgh and we wanted to cover the “tourist basics” first. But if you’re visiting during the festival, you WILL see some of their acts just by walking through town.

We also stumbled across a choir in St. Giles cathedral performing “Mamma mia” from Abba (VERY COOL! – surely not your usual church background music) and a classical music concert in the Museum of Scotland.

The center of the main attractions is High street, which is called “the royal mile”.

At one end there is Edinburgh castle and at the other Palace of Holyrood house (where the Queen resides if she’s in Edinburgh).

The royal mile is easily accessible from the main train station called Waverly station. You walk up a sloped walkway to Waverly bridge and turn left…now you walk straight ahead and cross an intersection. Up ahead you can see a lot of steps on the right hand side of the street. This is Advocates close…

if you ascend those steps it’ll drop you off right on the royal mile in view of St. Giles Cathedral.

Closes are narrow lanes all leading up to High street from both directions .They are all steep, since High street (as the name indicates) lies further up. Some have steps, others are just sloped. They all have an individual charm to them.

This is old fisherman’s close

All the sites we saw were within walking distance and although I looked up a whole bunch of public bus services beforehand, we didn’t need to use them at all. A lot of Edinburgh is definitely explorable on foot and I would definitely recommend to do so.

Next up are the single sites we explored. We’ll start with Edinburgh castle.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Edinburgh castle may be a misleading term…If you’re looking for royal pomp…you should consider visiting the Palace of Holyrood house instead.

Edinburgh castle is more of a fortress than a castle situated on castle hill. The city itself actually got it’s name deriving from a celtic settlement built on this hill – a volcano (last eruption 340 million years ago). The original name was Din Eidyn and it goes back to the 6th century. When the languages changed from Celtic to Old English, the “din” was replaced by “burh”, both meaning fortress. There you go “EDINBURGH”.

Later on in the 12th century the actual castle was built by David I, son of Saint Margaret of Scotland.

But enough of this history lesson. Let’s visit the castle, shall we?

First you enter through the esplanade – a vast courtyard in front of the actual gates. This is where they hold the Military tattoo each August. After you walk through the gate behind that space you have either the choice to

 

1.

use the free restrooms to the left

2.

Go stand in line to buy regular tickets to the very right

3.

Go straight ahead and into the first stone building to the right to buy your Explorer’s pass (which includes the entry fees to so many very cool sites in Scotland – including Edinburgh castle!)

Of course we decided on the third possibility. Inside this visitor information store, you hardly had any people ahead of you and you could just advance to the cashiers right away to buy your pass. We chose a family pass for three days…This way we’d have Edinburgh castle, Urquhart castle and Stirling castle (bad weather option) all covered for our cruise. Oh, three days means three individual days within a five day range…So it would perfectly fit our cruise itinerary. Even if we only did Edinburgh castle and Urquhart castle, we’d save quite a few pounds compared to the individual entry prices.

Plus – no lines to wait for tickets! Loving it!

You can even order the pass online and save even some more…but with South Queensferry being a tender port, we were too chicken to do that and then maybe loose the biggest chunk, being Edinburgh castle in case of bad weather and unability to tender.

Anyway, with our pass in hand, we proceeded to the main entrance. First thing inside the castle is a space with an incredible view of the city and the Firth of Forth….I could have sworn I saw a tiny part of our cruise ship way way out there.

Here stands one of the tourist highlights. The one o’clock gun. Every day (some exceptions) this canon fires a shot at exactly one o'clock…this tradition started as a time announcement for the ships out in the Firth to set their clocks…today it only is a tourist magnet. Anyway, here’s the place with the canon in the middle of the picture:

We even saw this military guy clean it

…pretty impressive…a white cloth gets stuck in on a long stick and comes out grey.

Further up the hill you kind of circle to the left and see St. Margaret’s chapel on the left hand side. This is the oldest still standing part of the castle…

Cute little chapel. In front of it’s entrance stands “Mons Meg”…an impressive huge canon, whose history would go into too much detail here…Just have a look.

Don’t forget to take a peak over the little wall in front of the canon…or you might miss this little gadget:

Know what this is?

It’s a pet cemetery for the dogs of the soldiers who were stationed here. Ain’t that cool?

Stay tuned!

Stef

Edited October 11, 2014 by Kreuzfahrtneuling

[Irish Cath]

oh Stef your words and pictures are just wonderful and are capturing the essence of Edinburgh perfectly. And yep one of my favorite things about Edinburgh Castle is indeed the pet cemetery.

[MiamiSpartan]

Great review!

My partner and I sail on MSC for the first time in two weeks....

We also like the inside cabins for the same reasons...we are never in the cabins and like the extra darkness for sleeping in...plus we would rather spend on cocktails, spas, and premium dining.....

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:pthank you Irishcath:p I'm trying to describe the atmosphere as accurate as possible and it feels good to hear you felt the same way! Thank you!

 

 

:)Welcome to the review MiamiSpartan!

 

 

sorry for the delay everybody, but the next post took me a while...

 

but all done writing now...Edinburgh castle continued coming up!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Edinburgh castle continued…

Next we were headed to see the crown jewels and the stone of destiny. See the door I’m heading to?

This will take you through a selfguided tour before you see the jewels and the stone at the end. If you’re really time pressed, you can walk in another entrance to the right to merely see the jewels and the stone…but I would really recommend doing this tour.

One example of stuff on this tour

It was a real shame, that we didn’t have the time to thoroughly read all the info posters…but one struck my eyes none the less…did you know that Sir Walter Scott, the famous Scottish author, helped to find the long lost crown jewels???

I’m a huge fan of Scott, ever since I started reading his books as a cultural preparation for this trip. First I read his “The heart of Midlothian” from our local library—as a German translation….it’s definitely something you have to concentrate on…no light reading… but once you get the hang of his style it’s a celebration of language itself. Complex, yet beautiful sentence structures. I was enthralled. Lol – currently I’m reading Ivanhoe – again – German translation. I also tried an original text…the “Lady of the Lake”, whose setting is right by our plans for our Greenock port stop…I bought the book online…since I couldn’t get it in English here…I was a little shocked when it arrived. It’s one huge poem…a 147 pages long poem in a language, that I would have needed a dictionary “English – Scott, Scott – English for. Yet it was a delightful challenge. Sure, I didn’t understand each word, sometimes not a single meaning of a whole paragraph, but the overall storyline and the atmosphere of the Trossachs still shimmered through to bewitch me.

Since it’s my review I take the liberty to be as detailed as I want to be, so here’s a paragraph of Scott’s “The lady of the Lake”:

The noble stag was pausing now

Upon the mountain’s southern brow,

Where broad extended, far beneath,

The varied realms of fair Menteith.

With anxious eye he wandered o’er

Mountain and meadow, moss and moor,

And pondered refuge from his toil,

By far Lochard or Aberfoyle.

But nearer was the copsewood gray

That waved and wept on Loch Achray,

And mingled with the pine-trees blue

On the bold cliffs of Benvenue.

Fresh vigor with the hope returned,

With flying foot the heath he spurned,

Held westward with unwearied race,

And left behind the panting chase.

We’d be driving through Aberfoyle and park right by Loch Achray later on in this cruise. Okay, we didn’t plan on hiking up Benvenue, but we’d be able to look at this mountain while we’d climb on a wee bit smaller one (Ben Aan)…at least those were our plans. But enough of Sir Walter Scott now.

Whew, that was a major sidetrack…back to the castle and the tour. The highlight is presented behind glass at the end of the tour…the crown jewels (whoohoo – go Scott) and the stone of destiny….uhoh, I feel another immense sidetrack coming up. But I just HAVE to tell you about this stone.

The stone of destiny—or the stone of Scone is a legendary stone, on which all kings of Scotland have been crowned…and later on English ones as well. After it had spent many years in English asylum, it has now been returned to Scotland under the premise that it shall be available if there’s a new crowning coming up…but the way Elisabeth is alive and kicking…that may still be a while. By the way…she was the last queen to be crowned on this stone:

 

foreign picture

I just don’t understand, why she had her foot on it…usually there’s a space underneath the coronation chair to hold the stone, see?

 

 

foreign picture

Well, if you believe another legend, this stone is only half of a bigger one, which got separated after the battle of Bannockburn (very famous battle for all Scots). Robert the Bruce was supposed to have given it as a gift to Cormac Mc Carthy in 1314 in recognition of the Irish support in this all important battle. Today that stone is still found in Ireland…It’s called the Blarney stone and is built in a tower wall of Blarney castle, close to Cork, Ireland. Lol – another legend says you receive the gift of eloquence, if you kiss this stone hanging upside down but that’s another sidetrack for later on…lol – anyway – it’s a major tourist attraction – guess what we had planned for our cruise day in Cork.

 

But for today I was happy to have seen the first part – the stone of destiny.

foreign picture

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Edinburgh castle continued --- again (lol -- hang in there -- only two more posts)

The great hall

When you exit the room with the jewels and the stone, you get spit out in a courtyard, which also leads to the great hall. It’s got beautiful wooden carvings and an impressive fire place. Alltogether it didn't blow us away though but heck -- just take a look -- you’re there already.

Tadahh

I liked this humongous picture

Look at the size of those swords

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Edinburgh castle – last post!

Next we strolled back down the hill to see the prisons of war exhibition. Again, we didn’t have enough time to read all the infos…especially sad when it came to these really amazing prison cell doors:

See all the carvings? Those are real carvings from imprisoned people…and if we`d have had more time, I’d have loved to try to find some of the explained carvings and read who actually made them…

These info posters right next to those doors would have helped out with that task. Sigh, but on we went.

Very neat part of this exhibition was this reenacted prisoners dwelling.

It was complete with moving, swaying hammocks and sounds of everyday life of the prisoners in the background. Very cool!

After this attraction we didn’t have lots of time anymore until we had to be at Mary King’s Close (the only place all cruise long that we had prebooked tickets for, except the rental cars).

 

So we started to stroll back towards the entrance. In front of the Regimental museum of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards on the way down, we stopped to take a picture of the statue in front of it (just like everybody else:rolleyes:) and decided we still had a couple of minutes to at least take a peek inside this one to close Edinburgh castle up. Here are some impressions.

I decided to post this picture because basically it sums up what this museum is about…Soldiers and horses.

...Like this statue (which we all thought was the very best part about this museum.

It had a special feel to it and you were able to walk around and look from many different viewpoints. We liked how it showed the close connection between the horse and it’s rider. For us it portrayed sympathy, trust and partnership during hard times. Great statue!

So that’s our report on Edinburgh castle. There is much more to explore here…but a cruise port stop is ever so short and we still had many other things we wanted to see, so you’ll just have to find out the other attractions here yourselves. It’s definitely worth it

Next up: our tour of Mary King’s Close

Stay tuned!

Stef

[BRACEWELL]

Stef,

 

Just wanted to say how much I am enjoying your epic review. The level of detail, humour and photo's are fantastic. It has great following and I'm sure that many people eagerly await each next instalment, hence the Downton Abbey' comparison (although I'm not sure that it is even shown in Germany).

 

Keep up the good work, your command of English is superb and thanks for all the effort that you continue to put in.

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Stef,

 

Just wanted to say how much I am enjoying your epic review. The level of detail, humour and photo's are fantastic. It has great following and I'm sure that many people eagerly await each next instalment, hence the Downton Abbey' comparison (although I'm not sure that it is even shown in Germany).

 

Keep up the good work, your command of English is superb and thanks for all the effort that you continue to put in.

 

Hi Bracewell,

welcome to the review! We do have Downton Abbey shown in Germany (primetime!) and I'm a HUGE fan! :pSo having my review compared to that show flatters me greatly:p...thank you so much!

 

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Mary King’s Close (post one of two)

Like I’ve already told you, closes are narrow lanes leading up to the Royal Mile from both sides. Pretty steep, with 7 story high houses built on either side.

Now once upon a time someone decided that it was time for more modern buildings and bought a whole section of houses and closes around Mary King’s close. But why demolish all of these sloped buildings when it’s much easier to build on even ground?

Well, to make a long story short, they just sort of decapitated the buildings on a certain hight and built on top of it….So today Mary King’s close is a street below the ground without any daylight, topped by the city chambers.

Here’s a model of the close before …when it was still open to the sky:

foreign picture:

And here it is now with the glass model of the city chambers on top of it.

foreign picture:

Our tour was to start at 11:30. We prebooked online, because someone had told us that it would get quite crowdy here in August. I don’t think that it was really necessary, but it was stressfree.

We really wanted to tour this place and would have been bummed to be left out…we brought a gift afterall.

Which brings me to another aspect of Edinburgh.

Did you know it’s supposed to be the most haunted city in Europe?

There are ghosts and ghost stories everywhere. Mhhh, I might need to add another sidetrack post for some of them. But let’s cover the one living (well – haunting) in Mary King’s Close, we brought a present for, at first.

The story goes like this:

A couple of years ago, a Japanese psychic visited Edinburgh in search for paranormal activities. She also went to check out Mary King’s Close.

When her cameraman asked her to come into one room, she stopped fast at the door and said she couldn’t. She felt so much sadness and many people dying in there, that she didn’t dare to enter. A couple of moments later, she entered nonetheless. The cameraman asked her: Why did you come in? I thought you couldn’t? She said that there was a little girl next to her, who invited her in…so now she could enter.

The cameraman asked her about the girl. She said she’s about 8 years old, blond, filthy hair and raggedy clothes – and she’s crying. Well, asked the guy, why is she crying?

“Apparently she’s got the sickness (the plague) and her parents brought her here (to die) so fast, she didn’t even have time to take along her doll.”

Now the psychic sent the camera man up to the Royal mile to buy a doll from one of the many tourist shops. When she laid down the doll in Annie’s room, she said that now Annie’s ghost is appeased and that she wouldn’t appear ever again.

Ever since that day it had become a tradition to bring gifts for Annie.

Of course we joined this fun tradition

Our doll for Annie

According to our tour guide, she’s grown to be quite the spoiled little lady. Look at the amount of toys in her room:

foreign picture:

I’ve read somewhere, that they donate the toys to children’s hospitals ever so often. For people who didn’t bring gifts there was the opportunity to donate some coins for children in Annie’s name. Cool idea!

I would have loved to take a picture of our doll on the heap…but taking pictures was forbidden in all of Mary King’s Close. But we put it there and were happy tourists.

Well, we weren’t only happy because of this fun Annie present giving adventure, but because the tour itself was fabulous! This was to a large degree depending on our wonderfully funny and witty tour guide:

 

foreign picture:

Shame on me but I don’t remember his name!

But I do remember, what his “uniform” stands for. It’s the official working attire of a “Foul clenger” around the year 1645. His job was to clean the houses of people who had the plague and to draw out the bodies to be cremated. The only “protection” he had during this deadly job was the cross of St. Andrews on his chest…apparently it didn’t help much, since the life expectancy of a foul clenger didn’t exceed 3 months after starting his career. Talk about a crappy job!

Anyway, the tour leads you through several vault like rooms with many interesting stories told by the guide. One of the highlights is a multimedia room with moving animated pictures on the walls. They show several famous inhabitants of the close and you get entangled in a lively conversation between them, which tells you a lot about the history of the place. Very enjoyable and funny.

foreign picture:

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Mary King’s Close continued

Shortly before the tour comes to an end, you are led onto the actual close. It is quite the experience…a street….real narrow and sloped….just underground in darkness. Very, very bizarre – absolutely worth booking the tour for.

foreign picture:

This is also the only spot, where you can have an official picture taken…I don’t know the price though. The guide tells you to stand beside the lantern and say cheese…

foreign picture:

Tadahh -- that’s what you might get: This is just an example of random people I’ve never met in real life.

One last very fascinating story will be told as you stand on the close, looking into this dwelling:

foreign picture:

This was the last inhabited flat on the close until it got completely evacuated in 1892.

Andrew Chesney lived here with his family and worked as a saw maker. You’re not allowed to go inside this room, because the wall paste to the right (see the shimmering dark glow) is full of Arsenic….quite poisonous.

But the funniest part of Chesney’s story can be seen in the little room in the center in the very back …

foreign picture:

it’s a toilet!

He owned the only household on the close, who had an inside toilet – and he was so proud of this, that there are reports of him letting the door to the street wide open when he used the restroom, so everybody should see, in what luxury he dwelled :eek:…..lol – I felt strangely reminded of the public restrooms on the Magnifica ;) .

Mary King’s close isn’t included in the Explorer’s pass…but the extra entrance fee was still worth it!

We enjoyed it VERY much!

Next up: a little sidetrack post about the ghosts of Edinburgh

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Ghosts of Edinburgh

I’ve never met another nationality which is so in love with their ghosts (lol – and seamonsters of course). Edinburgh breathes ghosts. Here are three examples:

 

The phantom piper

There once were rumors, that there should be a tunnel underneath the Royal Mile leading all the way from Edinburgh castle to Holyrood palace. How did they want to find out, if that’s true? They sent a single piper down into the tunnel at Edinburgh castle and let him play his bagpipes while he was supposed to walk straight ahead all the way to Holyrood palace…the people on the Royal Mile were supposed to listen, where he was located and follow along above the ground…well – it didn’t work. He piped as he walked…but the piping sound grew fainter and fainter, until it completely stopped. The piper never returned and was never found…but even up to this day, in silent nights, if you happen to stroll along on High street, you may still hear the faint sound of a single piper underneath your feet.

 

The stain

Mary, Queen of Scots had to witness how assassins, hired by her husband killed her secretary ( and maybe lover) with 56 stab wounds right in front of her eyes in a room in Holyrood house. Allegedly there still is a stain in the carpet on that very spot…no matter how much was tried to rub it off…even after replacing the carpet it supposedly returned. Lol – since we didn’t have time to visit the palace of Holyrood house, I can’t tell you if this is true:rolleyes:.

The poltergeist

 

Now this is an eerie story, that has actually resulted in the closure of the covenanters prison, a part on Greyfriar’s kirkyard.

It all started in 1999, when a homeless person broke into the tomb of Sir George Mac Kenzie for the night. Now, I can see that a tomb might give some shelter from the weather at night…granted ….but why on earth would you also open up the coffin to lay beside a rotten body?:confused:

 

Anyway, he did and apparently the 400 year old coffin collapsed together with the dusty remnants of Sir George Mac Kenzie:eek:.

The homeless surely hadn’t anticipated to be covered with human ashes and ran out into the kirkyard, panicking and screaming. Right at that time, there was a local out there walking his dog.

Picture a screaming, raggedy person, covered in ashes running up to you in the middle of the night on a cemetery. Of course he was sure to have seen a zombie and fled in terror.

Ever since that day, it is believed that this disturbance of Sir George has caused him to start up a new career as a terrorizing Poltergeist. Since 1999 there have been 350 documented attacks. 170 people have collapsed. The most dangered group were pregnant women and children under the age of twelve. There are reports of shoving and bruising to the extent of bleeding.

And where would he choose to pursue his evil deed? Well, in the covenanters prison of course…which he has used previously as a cruel prison for 1600 covenanters when he was still alive. MacKenzie was Lord advocate and a lawyer in his living days. He was known for many cruelties. The covenanters, who didn’t die after months of starvation where hanged on the Kirkyard.

The city council had to close off the covenanters prison, because of all the injuries. Now it is only opened up by certain ghost tours, who go in there with small groups of tourists…just to lock up afterwards again.

Well – we didn’t book a tour of the covenanters prison, but when we told my mom about Sir George Mac Kenzie – she seriously asked me: “and what present will you bring for him?”

“aehm---excuse me? He was mean – a real monster in life…and even now he keeps on hurting people”

“well, he`s angry. Why not appease him, like Annie was appeased with a doll from the Japanese psychic?”

well, what do you reply to that…I was stumped and started thinking about it.

What if we could set an end to all the terrorizing, by just acknowledging Sir George in a positive way? First I’d have to FIND something positive about him. I started my research.

He did do positive stuff in his lifetime. He was the headmaster of a university (St. Andrews) for a while, he founded libraries and successfully defended women in court, who were thought to be witches. He didn’t believe in witchcraft, but was smart enough to put it like that: ”there are a lot less witches in Scotland that commonly believed.” Lol – if he would have said that there are none at all – the church would have thought him to be a sorcerer as well.

Smart man – he wrote many books himself and spoke fluent French.

Tragic – he lost his only son.

He spent the last years of his life in England – away from the beloved Scotland.

So what do you give as a gift for someone like that? Mhh, he founded libraries, led a university and wrote books…

that’s it -- a book!

We chose a book written in English about a king way before his time (we didn’t want to confuse him with modern stuff like cars, microwaves and computers).

When we told my mom that we had decided to take along a present for Sir George as well, she thought that was a nice idea….well – it was her idea afterall, but we also thought it was pretty cool. Why should only Annie get all the presents?

Next up is the Greyfriar’s Kirkyard and of course Sir George Mac Kenzie’s tomb and our present.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

Greyfriar’s kirkyard (post one of three)

We walked up the Royal mile towards the castle again and turned left on North street. This street will lead you to the most photographed spot in Edinburgh. Any guesses as to what this is?

I’ll give you hints.

It was furry once

It is based on a Hollywood style, tear evoking story

Figured it out?

Of course! It’s Greyfriar’s bobby!

 

This little Skye terrier supposedly belonged to a police officer, who died. The legend says that this faithful puppy waited for his owner to return for 13 years right by his grave until he died himself (howl). He is the only dog to be buried on Greyfriar’s cemetery (although in a little off section).

So many tourists came to Greyfriar’s to see Bobby and didn’t find him, that the City Council once again had to react to occurrences based on myths. They set up a statue of Bobby in front of the cemetery and the dog aid society erected a gravestone for him

 

…I love it!

This is the entrance to Greyfriar’s kirkyard

There were lots of huge stone tombs. All of them locked.

 

Oh wait, this one is wide open

 

That lock doesn’t fulfill its purpose anymore if the whole deal is ripped out of the wall. Scary.

 

Another scary thing is this:

This is a so called mortsafe. It is an apparatus, which could be rented for a while by the relatives of a recently buried family member to put over his or her grave. Why would they want to do that, you ask?

Well, in those times it was common to dig out “fresh” corpses to sell them to the Anatomy institute, so the students of medicine could practice cutting them up. Sure, this was illegal all along, yet there was so much money to be made by this, that hardly anybody got discouraged.

Once the body was rotten enough, the Mortsafe could be returned to the cemetery, because the corpse wasn’t in danger of being stolen anymore.

Lol – this corpse digging, stealing, transporting and selling business would reencounter us in Ireland …just even worse…but I’ll tell you when I get there.

Stay tuned!

Stef

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:(starting to feel lonely here. Anybody still out there? Ore have I scared everybody away with way too much details? It's just so much more fun, when you have people to talk to.

 

Stef

[bridgetjonesni]

No, I'm gripped! This is the first thing I look for when I log on to the MSC forum each day :D Just quietly enjoying.

[Wriggler]

:(starting to feel lonely here. Anybody still out there? Ore have I scared everybody away with way too much details? It's just so much more fun, when you have people to talk to.

 

Stef

 

No - I'm still here Stef! :p

 

I read more than I post - maybe I'll keep adding a couple of posts so you know I'm here! Love all the detail, as ever.

 

Carol

[windjamming]

:(starting to feel lonely here. Anybody still out there? Ore have I scared everybody away with way too much details? It's just so much more fun, when you have people to talk to.

 

Stef

 

I'm still here, Stef! What a fun, content-filled review!! I love all the background and details you provide. I don't feel as guilty spending time on the Internet, because I'm learning something. :)

 

Oh, and Tarik is getting so big! He's really a young man, now!

 

One thing- on my screen (I use Firefox)- each post is really wide, so I have to do some left-right scrolling to read the review. I think it might be because of the larger than regular font. Absolutely not a big deal and doesn't deter from the enjoyment (I mean, learning) but thought I'd let you know.

[oreosmile]

I am still reading! Loving all the Edinburgh photos. I was there several years ago for a conference that had its reception in the castle. You brought back some great memories!

[bridgetjonesni]

One thing- on my screen (I use Firefox)- each post is really wide, so I have to do some left-right scrolling to read the review. I think it might be because of the larger than regular font. Absolutely not a big deal and doesn't deter from the enjoyment (I mean, learning) but thought I'd let you know.

 

It was doing the same for me on page 16 but I think it's just the large picture in post #314 that caused the problem. It shouldn't carry forward to this/other pages unless there are more pictures wider than your screen's resolution.

[spinnaker2]

I am enjoying, albeit quietly...thanks for this post and the narrative, and of course, the photographs.[emoji569]️

[Kreuzfahrtneuling]

:pyay -- I'm not alone!:p

 

:pThank you for your reassuring posts everybody! Knowing that there are still folks out there following along and enjoying the details lets me continue on with fresh enthusiasm...let's move on then :):cool::)!

 

Stef