Friday 21st September 2018, Linlithgow
This morning we drove down from the hills to the little town of Linithgow down below and found somewhere to park Modestine. By 10am we were walking the streets of Glasgow. Finally we have made it to Glasgow! Our first impression was one of broad shopping streets with chain stores, pubs and restaurants. Eventually we got our bearings and managed to escape the claustrophobic sameness of the city centre, making our way down to the banks of the Clyde as it flows through the city. We followed the path, which leads ultimately to the People's Park at the centre of which stands a huge glass house. There was hardly anyone around. Why, I complained, did I have to be dragged miles out of the city and across endless stretches of grass just to sit in a glass house?
Royal Concert Hall. Glasgow. Scotland.
Jewellery arcade. Glasgow. Scotland.
Market building. Disused. Glasgow. Scotland.
High Street. Clock tower. Glasgow. Scotland.
William III monument. Glasgow. Scotland.
Provands Lordship. Glasgow. Scotland.
Once we arrived and eventually found our way in however it was delightful. The glasshouse was a winter garden with succulents and cacti with a small cafe where we got coffee and sandwiches for lunch before visiting the free museum about life from around 1914 until after the 2nd World War. We spent some time looking at familiar things from our own childhood that are now considered sufficiently in the past to form museum exhibits! I sat nostalgically in an Anderson shelter remembering the one in our garden when I was a child. I've not been in one since the days when it formed the HQ of the secret society I belonged to with the neighbouring kids from our road. On wet afternoons we'd gather in the shelter to make plans, restring our bows and whittle away at sticks to make our arrows. On sunny days we'd meet outside the shelter and climb up onto its hot roof of corrugated iron to swap cigarette cards and drink from a shared jug of lemonade.
People's Palace. Glasgow. Scotland.
People's Palace. Winter Garden. Glasgow. Scotland.
People's Palace. Glasgow. Scotland.
People's Palace. Glasgow. Scotland.
Time to be serious. Ian decided he had indulged me long enough. So off we set at a quick pace to St. Mungo's Cathedral. This looked, when we found it, rather like a Victorian building of red sandstone. In fact its foundation dates from the 13th to 15th centuries. On the hillside overlooking the cathedral is the early Edwardian necropolis. It's a city of the dead where the wealthy citizens vied with each other to have the most impressive, lavish of monuments. Compared with Pere La Chaise in Paris it's rather tame but generally it's astonishing to see how many wealthy people lived in Glasgow at that time. There was much Cholera in the city and the necropolis helped overcome the problem of disease spreading by containing it in one place as the bodies were buried outside the limits of the city at that time, isolated on the hillside. At the top of the necropolis there is a monument to John Knox who looks down from the top of his column across the teeming city below him. Also up in this quarter is Glasgow's NHS Royal Infirmary.
Cathedral. Glasgow. Scotland.
Cathedral. Nave. Glasgow. Scotland.
Cathedral. Screen. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Cathedral. From necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Knox Memorial. Glasgow. Scotland.
Necropolis. Glasgow. Scotland.
Glasgow School of Art. Glasgow. Scotland.
We made our way back to the station and caught one of the four trains an hour that speed along the line towards Edinburgh stopping at Falkirk and Linlithgow along the way. The trains were on time, fast, clean and well used.
Back in Linlithgow we walked the High Street back to Modestine searching for food shops. We found essentials but the high street has few places of practical significance for everyday living, being largely restaurants and cafes. We took a peep at the loch, which looks charming, before rejoining Modestine and settling back on our pitch for the evening. Tonight the wind has got up again. I hope it stays nice for Edinburgh tomorrow.
Saturday 22nd September 2018, Linlithgow
Well we were in luck! The weather was perfect for walking around the city. Wall to wall sunshine and a fresh breeze. Once again we drove the winding, switchback road down into the town and parked Modestine. The train ride into Edinburgh took about 15 minutes and we were deposited below a steep flight of steps leading up to the Royal Mile from where the sound of bagpipes echoed hauntingly down. Sure enough, entering Edinburgh's main street in the old town, just below the castle, we found ourselves in a world of kilts and bagpipes, hippies and tourists. They came from around the world but mainly from Japan and China. You could easily distinguish them from the Europeans who wore rucksacks and bobble hats. The group tours from Asia all wore tartan scarves or carried tartan bags. I guess they were hoping to blend in! Either way, everyone was having a grand time and tickets for the Edinburgh tattoo were selling fast. Actually we did ponder what the Edinburgh tattoo might look like. Perhaps some bagpipes rampant crested with a haggis and tattooed onto the knee, forearm or shoulder?
We walked up to the castle, past the Camera Obscura. There really were serious queues for that and our time was limited so we turned and made our way slowly down the Mile, passing famous inns and names along the way. Pubs named for some of the colourful and evil past residents of the city, such as William Brodie who inspired R.L.Stephenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Castle. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Castle. From Princes Street. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Castle. From Castle Street. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Cathedral. Edinburgh. Scotland.
City Chambers. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Old mint?Edinburgh. Scotland.
Festival hub. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Hume, Joseph. Monument. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Cathedral. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Adam Smith. With mercat cross. Edinburgh. Scotland.
House of John Knox. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Passing a saxophonist we dropped 50p into his collecting plate thanking him for his effort at keeping the pipers at bay and creating one corner of the street where the bagpipes fell silent. Eventually the pipes grew fainter. They were only really there for the tourists and they certainly added colour and pzazz to Edinburgh's main attraction. By the time we'd reached the halfway mark the bagpipes were almost inaudible and we could look up at the lovely facades of the buildings, here with shops below and flats above, with less risk of colliding with other tourists.
Bagpiper. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Soon we found ourselves at the gates of Holyrood Palace. Once again there were crowds and queues. As we'd visited it many years ago when the son of our friends Peter and Jill was studying Medicine in Edinbugh and his flat was standing empty while he was home for the summer recess, we gave Holyrood a miss. I have written about our time in his flat during the Festival, in the pre-computer age, and may one day edit it as a retro blog.
Holyrood Palace. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Holyrood Palace. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Holyrood Palace. Murder of Rizzio by Sir William Allan. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Across the road from Holyrood stood the Scottish Parliament. I am not sure the building even existed when we were last in the city! Certainly it couldn't attract the crowds in the way the Palace opposite did. Always eager to discover something new we crossed the street and entered the hallowed hall. Rather to our surprise we were welcomed warmly, frisked and asked to run our belongings through the ex-ray scanner. Once Ian had his trouser belt securely fastened again we were welcomed to the palace, given the most simple map I have ever seen of one of the most complicated buildings I have ever been set loose in and we were sent on our way. There were a few other interested visitors, including a group of oriental tourists. We were free to explore on our own, to climb up to the debating chamber where we could look down onto the members' seats and the chair where Nicola Sturgeon would sit when the Parliament was in session. Later we suffered an unexpected and unwelcome experience in the members canteen where we were served cheese scones with sugar in!
Scottish Parliament. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. Debating chamber. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. Public gallery. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. Committee room. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. Symbol of human shape (or bottle of whisky?) Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. St Kilda parliament. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish Parliament. Map. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Our perambulations continued, taking us to the Scottish National Gallery where we saw some of Scotland's iconic paintings - such as The Monarch of the Glen by Edward Landseer, as well as an excellent collection of Dutch Masters that included Rembrandt. There is also a special Rembrandt exhibition currently happening in the city but we were concentrating on all things Scottish. We did stop however to watch a wonderful scene as local youngsters attending a jazz recital jived on the gallery concourse. They were brilliant! A giant bubble machine added colour and the young people, some dressed in 1960s clothes, danced with wonderful verve and enthusiasm giving a very professional and skilled display of the sort of dancing I vividly recall from the days before being defeated by the responsibilities of being a Grown-Up! They were far more sleek, sassy and professional than I recall from Friday nights down Croydon's Locarno jiving to the music of Bilk, Littleton and Ball!
Royal Terrace. Edinburgh. Scotland.
National Archives. Wellington monument. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Balmoral Hotel. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Royal Scottish Academy. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Royal Scottish Academy with dancers. Edinburgh. Scotland.
East Princes Street Gardens. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Royal Scottish Academy. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish National Gallery. Raeburn. Rev Robert Walker skating. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish National Gallery. Landseer. Monarch of the glen. Edinburgh. Scotland.
George Street. Albert Memorial at end. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Dundas Street. View to Firth of Forth. Scotland.
Scott, Sir Walter. Memorial. Edinburgh. Scotland.
We called in at the National Library for Scotland for a much needed cup of tea, and a quick bibliographical fix for Ian. Recharged we continued to Greyfriars Churchyard to gaze dolefully at the grave of Greyfriars Bobby. For anyone who may not know, he was a little Skye terrier whose master died when Bobby was two years old and for the next fourteen years the dog grieved beside his master's tomb in the cemetery, sustained only by a constant supply of left-over meat pies from the local pie shop and a dog license purchased annually by the soft-hearted town council, thus saving Bobby from certain death from starvation or being rounded up and destroyed for being unlicensed. He was 16 when he died. I reckon he knew which way up his dinner bowl was when he decided to stay put beside the grave!
Scottish National Library. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Scottish National Library. Book sculpture. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Greyfriars Bobby. Pub. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Greyfriars Bobby. Sculpture. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Greyfriars Bobby. Memorial. Edinburgh. Scotland.
Of Burke and Hare we saw nothing and anyway, we were far too weary to continue walking. We are now into our 70s and we'd been exploring all day. So we made our way back to Waverley Station and thus back to Linlithgow. There seemed to be quite a few young people wobbling around outside the pubs in the little town but they apologised politely enough when they fell into us or blocked our way past the pubs.
Time now to pack up and take a more detailed look at Linlithgow before we move on. We look like being back in England in a few days from now and we will need to consider our onward route south.
