Category Archives: Scotland

Edinburgh: City of Culture and Charity Shops

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The Day Before the Tour Started

After a restorative night’s sleep (jet lag favors those flying West) we had a nice breakfast of tea and toast at Barbara and Oliver’s, then Cassidy and I hit some thrift stores.

Yes, Edinburgh is full of culture, architecture, and history. It also has some kick butt charity shops (as they are called) and I know where every single one of them is. Cassidy and I started in Stockbridge, strolling there with Jack along the Leith River Walk via a shady tunnel of greenery. Jack normally doesn’t care for walking, but that one through Dean Village (a historic part of Edinburgh) was lovely. We parked him with a pot of tea at a bakery and pillaged Stockbridge. It was most satisfying.

Jack and I had a family lunch at a French institute restaurant just that little bit off the beaten path (read: not six people per square inch like the rest of the High Street.)  We aimed Cassidy at the Victoria Bow (famous for historic shops, the oldest Quaker meeting house in Scotland, and the Harry Potter store) and enjoyed catching up on family with my beloved sister-in-law Alison and with Alison and Jack’s cousin Donald, the family historian. He had brought us six pages of family tree. (Alison brought us t-shirts, Jack’s quoting the famous declaration of Arbroath paragraph, mine warning people of my easy distraction via books and cats. Nailed it.)

Cassidy and I found each other again outside St Giles cathedral, and the weather being less changeable than the day before, we crossed one more thing off her bucket list: the ascension of Arthur’s Seat.

(FYI there are four Arthur’s seats in the United Kingdom, one in each country that makes it up. Convenient for tourism that way. Each claims to be his final resting place. We also have six graves of Robin Hood. But only one Nessie.)

You used to be able to drive up this massive mound, but now it’s on foot or forget it. Halfway up, we considered “forget it” but we were leapfrogging with a group of five German lads. When they passed us one of them would shout “Come on girls.” When we passed them we would give thumbs up signs. We all made it to the top, where we collapsed for a few minutes before the requisite photos. There really is a beautiful view up there, all the way to the sea. Cassidy picked a few flowers to preserve in her phone case.

Down was easier. We headed into Edinburgh and saw Greyfriar’s Bobby (the statue dedicated to a loyal dog). Cassidy works for a vet practice. She had carefully looked up the “best hot chocolate in Scotland” which was .4 from Greyfriar’s Bobby, so we found it easily (the line wrapped around the corner). She had cocoa, I had gelato. Neither of us worried about the calories, having just climbed Arthur’s Seat. Life was good. The seagull who got the last bit of my cone when the double-scooper of almond amaretto and Belgian chocolate raspberry defeated me also had a good time.

We had logged 9.25 miles according to this thing in Cassidy’s wrist, so we headed back to BnO, stopping for a charity shop or two, but our hearts weren’t in it; our aching feet overruled them. Since it was nearing suppertime, I asked Cassidy did she want to pick up groceries, raid BnO’s fridge, or avail ourselves of the world class international cuisine available in Edinburgh, many of which we would pass on the way back to BnO’s place.

She wanted a fish supper. We went back to the chippy by BnO’s.

That evening we chatted with Mark, who again kept us laughing, and enjoyed the sunken garden out back. The tour started tomorrow, so it was early to bed, knowing we had a big day tomorrow meeting the gang and starting the travel in earnest.

Edinburgh: Cassidy’s Firsts

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Edinburgh: Tour minus one day

We departed Knoxville with Cassidy in tow. Her mother entrusted this perpetually happy 20-something to us, as Cassidy had never flown before, let alone been overseas.

The flight from Knoxville to Atlanta was 38 peaceful minutes of Cassidy glued to the window emitting occasional gasps of delight. We tried to explain that the flight from Atlanta to Edinburgh would be, shall we say, less comfortable. Every time I looked over on that 10 pm-6 am ATL-EDI flight, Cassidy was twisted into a different bread product shape. There was the pretzel, when she tried sleeping with her knees tucked up, feet on her chair. The brioche, when she slumped onto a pillow on the folding tray. The croissant, a kind of diagonal lean that annoyed the man next to her. The donut. Nuff said.

None of it worked. Microsleeping in three-minute intervals sucks. We arrived groggy, grabbed our luggage, and boarded the tram for downtown Edinburgh, where we would stay with beloved friends Barbara and Oliver. Cassidy loved the tram ride, waking up more with each stop.

The skies opened as we departed the tram with about a half-mile walk to BnO. Cassidy loved the rain. She said it was lucky if it rained on your wedding day, so this was Scotland welcoming us. We didn’t quite follow the logic, but she was helping pull Jack’s suitcase, and she was cheerful, so it didn’t matter. This would become a pattern. Cassidy=cheerful.

We squelched into BnO’s and went down the staircase to their warm kitchen, where the Aga (a kind of stove that’s on perpetually in British houses, providing what is often the only internal heat) welcomed us. BnO live in an old four-story, where they own two of the stories including a sunken garden out the back where Cassidy had her first cup of tea. We had naps.

We met Mark, some wealthy real estate guy who was a lot of fun and took us all to the local pub. (We should explain, Barbara is famous. She’s like the Dolly Parton of Scotland, so she has a lot of people who are friends because it’s cool to go to a pub with Barbara, etc.) Mark was a hoot. He thought Cassidy was a hoot and bought her a Guinness with Black Currant. Her first drink.

“The Currant will make it palatable,” he said with a grin, setting the thing down before her. (It didn’t, but she managed to get it down while the rest of us had three rounds of something.)

We had fish suppers, and this Cassidy found more palatable. For those who have never had a fish supper, it’s deep fried battered fish and chips—french fries to you—with a wee Styrofoam cup of mushy peas usually thrown in. Because, we should all eat our vegetables. I often refer to the natural self-loathing that follows a good fish supper. You can’t believe you ate something that bad for you, but at the time it’s sooooo good you ignore the voices saying things like cholesterol, calories, heart attacks….

Then I took Cassidy for an evening ramble as the rest sat chatting about music, politics, and other Scottish subjects. Up past Princes Gardens to the High Street, thence to the Royal Mile, so tomorrow she could conquer it herself. And so we could walk off the fish suppers. The child caught on quickly.

Home again, in the Scottish daylight that lasts well into 11 pm, and face down into the eiderdown we went. And there was darkness from about 1-4 am, and that was Cassidy’s first day in a foreign land.