Castles & gardens
Sunday morning I got going early (after a carefully ordered breakfast of poached eggs, which were mercifully more palatable than the scrambled version yesterday) and made my way back to the castle. By the time I made the nearly hour-long walk from Leith downtown and the up the hill, the line in front of the castle was already building. But it seemed to be moving fairly swiftly, so I waited it out and finally got inside the fortress walls. This reminded once again that while I've been traveling these last few months, it's always been during the cold low season - which is quickly giving way to warm season when throngs of visitors seem to all want to go to the same place I want to go. Go figure.
I made my way into the walled battlements, where cannons of various vintages guard over the city below. The castle has been around for centuries, and it's current incarnation as a tourist magnet (at ten pounds fifty a pop) is probably its most successful endeavor, given its reputation more as a target to be conquered rather than an asset to be defended. Along the main street are signposts outlining the history of the castle, of sieges and counter-sieges and grand battles between the English and the Scottish that seem to have been going for so many eons that it almost makes me wonder how either knew where one nation ended and the other began.
Inside the castle walls are a series of museums and monuments largely dedicated to the glory of the Scottish military tradition - that unique brand of fightin' man that wears plaid skirts into celebration and battle alike. Part of this whole display has that whole ring of a proud people who refused to be ruled (or at least refused to be ruled without some effort at revolt) by outside forces. But when it spills over into glorious celebration of, say, the role of Scottish regiments in the first and current Gulf Wars, the charm really starts to wear off. No matter how many times the same story is told, it never fails to amaze me how those who are most attached to their own autonomy and home rule are also so quick to trample on the same desires of others to that same end. Is this what William Wallace (memorialized so indelibly and inaccurately in the movie Braveheart) would have wanted when he rose up against British rule? Maybe it was, who knows.
The remainder of the display mostly covered the variety of gear worn by Scottish soldiers over the centuries and over the different clans. One thing I was surprised to see was that there was one clan variously known as Docherty, Doherty, or Dougherty - same as the Irish name. Though Scotland and Ireland are just a narrow channel away, I never knew that there was significant crossover between the two - but apparently there were enough Irish in Scotland for long enough that they have their own tartan, their own clan identity.
Interspersed among all that was the bits of history here and there of the endless wars that seemed to virtually define Europe for everything but the last 50 years. For some reason, I find the stories of the pre-historical to the Roman era to the middle ages fascinating, but somewhere around about 1700 the whole of Europe seems to have devolved into a revolving series of battles in which no one was particularly right about their actions, and if someone was right in one battle, they were inevitably creating unholy terror the next time around. France, Britain, the various incarnations of Germany, and half a dozen other nationalities seemed to have just spent a few hundred years reaming each other without mercy, eventually landing on the upward end of steep learning curve that was the two world wars. Not that Europe or America has established an entirely enlightened foreign policy since then, but at least there seems to be a general consensus now that if you're going to wage war between mighty powers, you might as well do it on someone else's territory where you're own civilians aren't trying to go on living with the front lines passing through their front yards. Not that this has made for a benign policy toward the rest of the world - it's just that with this history, it's all the more amazing that Europe has been able to come together in the European Union, drop the national currencies that hinder trade across the continent, and even open up the physical and legal borders so that citizens of any of the EU countries can travel and work in any of these other nations that once went to decades-long war against each other. It's almost kind of inspiring.
Chewing on the political philosophy of the EU, I wandered out of the castle complex and back down the royal mile. I figured lunch was pleasant enough yesterday at the Hollyrood Palace's cafe (with the additional benefit that they didn't throw me out even after I'd been sitting around for a couple of hours, resting my feet), so I went back there again, and again put my feet up and ate a sandwich and salad - though this time I skipped the beer, as I didn't want to get any overblown ideas about, say, re-attempting the hike up to Arthur's Seat again. Feeling slightly more energetic after lunch, I decided (once again, what was I thinking?) to make the walk out to the Royal Botanic Garden, which was most of an hour in a completely different direction. Along the way back across Prines Street, I stopped for a few minutes into the National Gallery. I didn't stay long - I always give it about 45 minutes or so before I get bored with museums, which is why it's great that the museums in Britain are free, so that I can go back again without having to shell out several pounds to see a few paintings.
I made it to the gardens around five o'clock (still hours to go before sundown!) and wandered around through neatly trimmed lawns and immaculately kept trees. An enormous greenhouse at one end holds several specialized gardens from areas of the world far hotter than Scotland (though perhaps no wetter), so I wandered through miniature desert and cloud forest and tropical swamp until just about closing time. It was still fairly early - too early to go home to the hotel, but again there didn't seem to be too much Sunday-night action in this part of town. I started to head back up (don't laugh!) to the mall again. There wasn't much else playing at the movies that I wanted to see, but I figured there must be something I could sit through if it meant getting off my feet for a while. I started walking in that direction, but stopped at a bus stop to see if one might happen along like the schedule said. It didn't, so I started walking again, but finally saw it going by and ran to catch up. And a good thing too, because I don't think I would have made the rest of the walk to Ocean Terminal. I did finally get there (dinner at Starbucks, yup) and put up my feet to watch Mission Impossible III, which was actually (and sadly) far better than the flick I watched last night.
The next morning it was back to London for me, on the first train I could get out of Waverly - which was, unfortunately, on the long route to London. Despite the crowded holiday train, it passed through some beautiful country. Lots of small towns and open green fields, and one stop that sounded familiar - Lockerbie, which was just a dot on a map until late 1988 when a Pam Am jet with a bomb on board exploded over the town, killing almost a dozen people on the ground as well as 250 or so on the plane. Beyond that landmark, the scenery passed imperceptibly from Scotland to England. Four hours later the train pulled into Euston Station, just a couple blocks from my flat, and I was home again.
I made my way into the walled battlements, where cannons of various vintages guard over the city below. The castle has been around for centuries, and it's current incarnation as a tourist magnet (at ten pounds fifty a pop) is probably its most successful endeavor, given its reputation more as a target to be conquered rather than an asset to be defended. Along the main street are signposts outlining the history of the castle, of sieges and counter-sieges and grand battles between the English and the Scottish that seem to have been going for so many eons that it almost makes me wonder how either knew where one nation ended and the other began.
Inside the castle walls are a series of museums and monuments largely dedicated to the glory of the Scottish military tradition - that unique brand of fightin' man that wears plaid skirts into celebration and battle alike. Part of this whole display has that whole ring of a proud people who refused to be ruled (or at least refused to be ruled without some effort at revolt) by outside forces. But when it spills over into glorious celebration of, say, the role of Scottish regiments in the first and current Gulf Wars, the charm really starts to wear off. No matter how many times the same story is told, it never fails to amaze me how those who are most attached to their own autonomy and home rule are also so quick to trample on the same desires of others to that same end. Is this what William Wallace (memorialized so indelibly and inaccurately in the movie Braveheart) would have wanted when he rose up against British rule? Maybe it was, who knows.
The remainder of the display mostly covered the variety of gear worn by Scottish soldiers over the centuries and over the different clans. One thing I was surprised to see was that there was one clan variously known as Docherty, Doherty, or Dougherty - same as the Irish name. Though Scotland and Ireland are just a narrow channel away, I never knew that there was significant crossover between the two - but apparently there were enough Irish in Scotland for long enough that they have their own tartan, their own clan identity.
Interspersed among all that was the bits of history here and there of the endless wars that seemed to virtually define Europe for everything but the last 50 years. For some reason, I find the stories of the pre-historical to the Roman era to the middle ages fascinating, but somewhere around about 1700 the whole of Europe seems to have devolved into a revolving series of battles in which no one was particularly right about their actions, and if someone was right in one battle, they were inevitably creating unholy terror the next time around. France, Britain, the various incarnations of Germany, and half a dozen other nationalities seemed to have just spent a few hundred years reaming each other without mercy, eventually landing on the upward end of steep learning curve that was the two world wars. Not that Europe or America has established an entirely enlightened foreign policy since then, but at least there seems to be a general consensus now that if you're going to wage war between mighty powers, you might as well do it on someone else's territory where you're own civilians aren't trying to go on living with the front lines passing through their front yards. Not that this has made for a benign policy toward the rest of the world - it's just that with this history, it's all the more amazing that Europe has been able to come together in the European Union, drop the national currencies that hinder trade across the continent, and even open up the physical and legal borders so that citizens of any of the EU countries can travel and work in any of these other nations that once went to decades-long war against each other. It's almost kind of inspiring.
Chewing on the political philosophy of the EU, I wandered out of the castle complex and back down the royal mile. I figured lunch was pleasant enough yesterday at the Hollyrood Palace's cafe (with the additional benefit that they didn't throw me out even after I'd been sitting around for a couple of hours, resting my feet), so I went back there again, and again put my feet up and ate a sandwich and salad - though this time I skipped the beer, as I didn't want to get any overblown ideas about, say, re-attempting the hike up to Arthur's Seat again. Feeling slightly more energetic after lunch, I decided (once again, what was I thinking?) to make the walk out to the Royal Botanic Garden, which was most of an hour in a completely different direction. Along the way back across Prines Street, I stopped for a few minutes into the National Gallery. I didn't stay long - I always give it about 45 minutes or so before I get bored with museums, which is why it's great that the museums in Britain are free, so that I can go back again without having to shell out several pounds to see a few paintings.
I made it to the gardens around five o'clock (still hours to go before sundown!) and wandered around through neatly trimmed lawns and immaculately kept trees. An enormous greenhouse at one end holds several specialized gardens from areas of the world far hotter than Scotland (though perhaps no wetter), so I wandered through miniature desert and cloud forest and tropical swamp until just about closing time. It was still fairly early - too early to go home to the hotel, but again there didn't seem to be too much Sunday-night action in this part of town. I started to head back up (don't laugh!) to the mall again. There wasn't much else playing at the movies that I wanted to see, but I figured there must be something I could sit through if it meant getting off my feet for a while. I started walking in that direction, but stopped at a bus stop to see if one might happen along like the schedule said. It didn't, so I started walking again, but finally saw it going by and ran to catch up. And a good thing too, because I don't think I would have made the rest of the walk to Ocean Terminal. I did finally get there (dinner at Starbucks, yup) and put up my feet to watch Mission Impossible III, which was actually (and sadly) far better than the flick I watched last night.
The next morning it was back to London for me, on the first train I could get out of Waverly - which was, unfortunately, on the long route to London. Despite the crowded holiday train, it passed through some beautiful country. Lots of small towns and open green fields, and one stop that sounded familiar - Lockerbie, which was just a dot on a map until late 1988 when a Pam Am jet with a bomb on board exploded over the town, killing almost a dozen people on the ground as well as 250 or so on the plane. Beyond that landmark, the scenery passed imperceptibly from Scotland to England. Four hours later the train pulled into Euston Station, just a couple blocks from my flat, and I was home again.
posted by skylanda at 1:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home