Edinburgh - The Athens of the North

The kids just completed their “half term” which is a week off of school (kind of like a Spring Break, except they get three of them throughout the year). I took Thursday and Friday off and we all ventured into Scotland to visit the city of Edinburgh (pronounced Edinboro). The city is about a three hour drive from us and is on the East coast of the island. Edinburgh is called the “Athens of the North” and although we have never been to Athens, we can see why it called that. The pictures that I have seen of Athens show and old city built around hills and water with great Roman monuments and ruins visible in prominent spots. Edinburgh is much the same; it is a city built on a very unusual landscape. There is the coast to the east, a large volcanic mound in the center, called Arthur’s Seat, and a large castle built on another volcanic mountain. The city is an intricate maze of cobble-stone streets that surround the castle mountain. There are thousands of little shops selling everything from Scottish tartans (the famous plaid fabrics representing Scottish family lines) to expensive wool sweaters, to touristy junk. It is not unusual to see a family completely dressed in the Scottish attire, knee-high socks, a kilt and a formal looking vest. While back home, people would gawk and perhaps laugh, here it fits in and looks almost normal. The streets of Edinburgh also are filled with the sounds of bagpipes. I’m sure that this is sponsored by the tourist department, but it still is quite nice and adds to the unique charm of the city.

The pictures we've included here help depict the beauty of the city, but do not really do it justice (by the way, if you "double-click" on any of the pictures, they should enlarge for you). There are many spots in the city where you get a 360 degree panorama of the entire area. The castle is one of them. This castle, parts of which are more than a thousand years old, is built on a very large rock formation that juts up in the middle of the city. From the castle towers, you can see the North sea to the east, and the lush green hills of Scotland to the west, and the entire city that surrounds it. It was fun imagining what it would have been like defending the castle from attacks. Nathan got into it, but most of his sound effects included modern guns (he's just about perfected his machine gun sound, almost as good as Caleb Westergreen). Every afternoon at exactly 1:00, they fire one of the cannons from the castle over the city. Again, like just about everything here in England, this has been traditionally done for centuries. I think the only time they missed a firing was during the World Wars.

We also climbed Arthur's Seat, the second volcanic mound in the city. I call it a mound, but it takes more than an hour to climb to the top. Once there, you get another amazing view of the city. This time, you can see the magnificent castle and the surrounding city. The kids complained about my desire to scale Arthur's seat (especially since we had spent two entire days doing nothing but walking) but it is the type of mountain that is just screaming to be climbed. I'm certain that God created mountains for us to enjoy and for us to conquer.