"E" is a hard letter with which to alliterate! Lets see how many fitting "E" adjectives I can come up with throughout these Edinburgh posts.
Where were we? Oh, yes: Old Town. I've pretty much covered the most exciting parts of the Royal Mile (with the exception of Holyrood Palace and Arthur's Seat, which will probably be in the next post).
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| University of Edinburgh |
The University of Edinburgh is a great place to start. The architecture is beautiful! I almost couldn't believe that it was a school. Though, now that I think about it, it's exactly what I imagine an academic institution during the Enlightenment would look like. But, of course, it is much older than that! UofE was established in freakin' 1585! Lets put that into some historical context: in 1587, just two years later, Elizabeth I of England has Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded! Mary's son, James VI of Scotland, will eventually (1603) become the first monarch of England and Scotland (and is known as James VI & I). You may not have heard of Edinburgh before, but UofE has one of the most impressive alumni lists I have ever seen! Are you ready? Adam Smith, Alexander Graham Bell (telephone guy), David Hume, Charles Darwin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Sir Walter Scott, and a few signatories of a little document ... you may have heard of it: the US Declaration of Independence (James Wilson, John Witherspoon, and Benjamin Rush)!
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| University of Edinburgh, Medical School |
It just makes you wonder - at least, it makes me wonder - how did our American accent morph from English and Scottish? It turned out quite differently when they tried that in Australia. One of our tour guides around Edinburgh was Australian and maintained that their accent evolved from Brits who were not used to seeing the sun: as they squint, their mouths open wider at the corner. It makes sense, I promise. Think about it this way: "crikey" doesn't sound right unless you open your mouth all the way. Brits, by contrast, like to mumble, which makes reading lips here 1000 times harder ... volume is definitely NOT a problem for Scots or Aussies.
This domed building is actually a giant lecture hall for the UofE Medical School. Next to its sign that said "Medical School," there was chalked graffiti that said "gifted minds only." I didn't really know if laughing would be appropriate, so I just smiled to myself and kept walking. It was actually in this building (it extends down the block) that the first sheep was cloned!
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| The Bubble Car, National Museum of Scotland |
Dolly the Sheep, as she has come to be known as, was cloned in 1997 and is now a stuffed specimen of the National Museum of Scotland, which has a collection of some really random and really awesome stuff (no pun intended). Of the thousands of items displayed in the museum, my favorite was the bubble car! This may shock you, but cars were not as popular here in Britain like they were in the US during the first half of the 20th century. This is primarily because cities are smaller and public transportation better. But, the idea of independent travel was really attractive after the end of WWII. Unfortunately, Britain also had no money after the war. Hence, the bubble car: it holds one or two people, has three wheels, one door (front end, so you're screwed if you have to parallel park - no way out except the window!), and was made from leftover sheet metal from the war. These were very popular for a number of years, but stood no chance once the Mini Cooper zoomed into town!
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| Grassmarket |
Just down the road (both down the block, and DOwN (as in elevation) the road), is an area called Grassmarket. This spot used to be green down the center because it was where livestock was bought and sold at the farmers market. Unfortunately, the grass has since been replaced with brick, but the farmer's market returns every weekend. Grassmarket also used to be the site of the town gallows, a fitting spot in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle. It was like one-stop shopping: sell your cow, buy your food, grab a drink (Grassmarket is lined with pubs), and get front row seats for that day's hanging. In fact, there's a pub called The Last Drop, which was, as you may have guessed, where the condemned went for their last drop of Scottish ale or scotch whiskey before their last drop. (The Last Drop is to the right of this picture, as is The Smallest Pub In Scotland pub. We had a chance to go into The Last Drop, but not The Smallest Pub ... it was too crowded).
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| The Kiss, Rodin (1889) |
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| Cain and Abel, de Vries (c.1662) |
And, since I mentioned museums, I might was well show you some of the cool stuff I saw at the National Gallery of Scotland. I think the Gallery is technically located in New Town, but it's really in the valley between the two. In any case, it has a pretty nice selection. I know I said in my Hull post that I really love oils on canvas, and I do, but I love sculpture even more (perhaps it's my fascination with all things anatomy!), which is why my favorite pieces in the Gallery were Rodin's The Kiss (on loan to Edinburgh for just a year) and Adriaen de Vries's Cain and Abel.
The BEST post is up next! Thanks for reading!
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