HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Edinburgh Castle
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Forgetting my rain jacket
WORD OF THE DAY: BIGGEST jacket potato EVER
Good morning Scotland. Edinburgh Castle was on our hot list today and with the heads up that we needed to get to the Castle early, with it opening at 9.30am we ran our morning schedule around this. Even though we have a private room we don’t have an ensuite, so I was up at 7.30am and was lucky enough to get an empty bathroom for a shower. The toilet and showers here are in the same room, so it would be super annoying if you needed to go to the toilet and someone was in there having a shower, washing their hair and shaving their legs for the next 30 minutes, but I was lucky and mindful of that exact fact, I was in and out in case someone was waiting, which they weren’t and we were on our way to breakfast at 8.15am.
The little café had a deal with the hostel, if you purchased a voucher from reception you save 2GBP off the cost of a traditional Scottish breakfast, so we thought that was too good to pass up and ordered that asking if they could hold off on the Haggis (not for breakfast) to which the reply came was that they don’t custom make breakfast for the hostel, well…. How rude, I was just wanting to save wasting the Haggis, it wasn’t like I was asking for a double café, soy milk, gluten free, animal tested coffee…. Geez and needless to say even though the Haggis was tried, it was not eaten and felt a small rush of anger that due to the waiters pig headedness that both Shaz and mine was going to make it into the bin. What a waste.
Sharon had arrived 3 days before me as she wanted to see The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. I have heard of the tattoo but never really had a burning desire to see the Tattoo itself but I did rethink it briefly after Shaz showed me some of her video footage that she took from her performance a few days ago. So what is it? It is an annual series of Military tattoos performed by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and International military bands and display teams on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle. The event takes place annually throughout August, as part of the wider Edinburgh Festival (a collective name for many independent festivals and events held in Edinburgh during August).
The word "Tattoo," is derived from "Doe den tap toe", or just "tap toe" ("toe" is pronounced "too"), the Dutch for "Last orders". Translated literally, it means: "close the (beer) tap". The term "Tap-toe" was first encountered by the British Army when stationed in Flanders during the War of the Austrian Succession. The British adopted the practice and it became a signal, played by a regiment's Corps of Drums or Pipes and Drums each night to tavern owners to turn off the taps of their ale kegs so that the soldiers would retire to their billeted lodgings at a reasonable hour. With the establishment of modern barracks and full Military bands later in the 18th century, the term Tattoo was used to describe not only the last duty call of the day, but also a ceremonial form of evening entertainment performed by Military musicians. The first official Edinburgh Military Tattoo began in 1950 with just eight items in the programme. It drew some 6000 spectators seated in simple bench and scaffold structures around the north, south and east sides of the Edinburgh Castle esplanade. In 1952, the capacity of the stands was increased to accommodate a nightly audience of 7700, allowing 160,000 to watch live performances each year. Now, on average, just over 217,000 people see the Tattoo live on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle each year, and it has sold out in advance for the last decade. 30% of the audience are from Scotland and 35% from the rest of the United Kingdom. The remaining 35% of the audience consists of 70,000 visitors from overseas. Only the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is a bigger part of the Edinburgh Festival, although that consists of over 2000 productions staged across 247 venues. So far, over 30 countries have been represented at the Tattoo. Apparently due to the Olympic Games this year in London there were still some tickets left for the next few nights performances which has been unheard of in the history of the Tattoo. So I did have an opportunity to go tonight, but the thought of battling the crowds and the start of our Haggis tour tomorrow I decided against it and will give me something to some back for.
What I didn’t realize till yesterday was that The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (The Fringe) was also on. It is the world's largest arts festival, with the 2012 event spanning 25 days totaling over 2,695 shows from 47 countries in 279 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place annually in Scotland's capital, in the month of August. The Fringe is a showcase for the performing arts, particularly theatre and comedy (which has seen substantial growth in recent years), although dance and music are also represented. In 2012, 36% of shows were comedy and 28% theatrical productions. In 2012, 1,418 shows were having their world premiere. The Fringe is an unjuried festival – with no selection committee, and therefore any type of performance may participate. In addition to ticketed, programmed events, the Festival has included a street fair, located primarily on the Royal Mile. The Festival is organized by the Festival Fringe Society, which publishes the programme, sells tickets, and offers advice to performers. Their offices are on the Royal Mile. The Board of Directors is drawn from members of the Festival Fringe Society, who are often Fringe participants themselves - performers or administrators. Elections are held once a year, in August, and Board members serve a term of three years.
The Fringe started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival in 1947. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in Dunfermline Cathedral, about 20 miles north, across the river Forth, in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own, alternative, theatre. The Fringe got its name the following year (1948) after Robert Kemp, a Scottish playwright and journalist, wrote during the second Edinburgh International Festival: ‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before ... I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’. The Fringe did not benefit from any official organization until 1951, when students of the University of Edinburgh set up a drop-in center in the YMCA, where cheap food and a bed for the night were made available to participating groups. It was 1955 before the first attempt was made to provide a central booking service. The advent of the Fringe was not warmly greeted by some sections of the International Festival (and the Edinburgh establishment), leading to outbursts of animosity between the two festivals. This lasted well into the 1970s. The Fringe has grown dramatically since its inception. Statistics for 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe concluded that it was the largest on record: there were over 40,000 performances of over 2,500 different shows in 258 venues. Ticket sales amounted to around 1.8 million. There are now 12 full-time members of staff. Over the first 20 years each performing group had its own performing space, or venue. However, by around 1970 the concept of sharing a venue became popular, principally as a means of cutting costs. It soon became possible to host up to 6 or 7 different shows per day in a hall. The obvious next step was to partition a venue into two or more performing spaces; the majority of today's venues fit into this category. Sharon had seen a show yesterday and we decided we would go and see one this afternoon after the castle and after lunch. There are so many shows and the Fringe guide is so thick with every single performance listed in there with a blurb about the show, the cost, the venue and the times. It was like a yellow pages of shows to be seen that runs over a 3 week period. We decided to limit the choices by looking at dance shows rather than a drama or comedy just for a little something different. They had some Africa dance troops which I was keen on but we caught a show with a difference that used only hands. It sounded interesting, it was only 12GBP and the time looked like it would fit within our day. So with that plan in mind we headed to the castle for the first bit of our day in Edinburgh.
As Shaz had got the tip to come early we stopped at a shop to kill some time and arrived at the Castle right on 9.30am and already there was a queue of around 100 people. This is where I realized I should have bought my rain jacket with me as it slightly showered while we waited the 15 minutes in line before the sun popped out just as we were about to enter the castle. I am going to have to get back into thinking with my travelers hat again and especially in a country renowned for hit and miss weather, I need to be prepared for all seasons. There was a free 25 minutes guided tour starting in 10 minutes, so we decided to take that and took the small opportunity to get some snaps before the tour started. Edinburgh Castle is a fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle here since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued to be a royal residence until the Union of the Crowns in 1603. From the 15th century the castle's residential role declined, and by the 17th century its principal role was as a military base with a large garrison. Its importance as a historic monument was recognized from the 19th century, and various restoration programmes have been carried out since. As one of the most important fortresses in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts, from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century, up to the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and has been besieged, both successfully and unsuccessfully, on several occasions.
Few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of the 16th century, when the medieval fortifications were largely destroyed by artillery bombardment. The most notable exceptions are St Margaret's Chapel, the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, which dates from the early 12th century, the Royal Palace, and the early-16th-century Great Hall. The castle also houses the Honors of Scotland, the Scottish National War Memorial, and the National War Museum of Scotland.
Although formally owned by the Ministry of Defence, most of the castle is now in the care of Historic Scotland, and it is Scotland's most-visited paid tourist attraction. The garrison left in the 1920s, but there is still a military presence at the castle, largely ceremonial and administrative, and including a number of regimental museums. As the backdrop to the annual Edinburgh Military Tattoo it has become a recognizable symbol of Edinburgh and of Scotland.
The tour started to some more showers as Shaz and I huddled under her rain jacket. It wasn’t bucketing down but it was wet enough to try and get under some form of cover and the rain jacket proved good enough. So we started just inside the gate of the Argyle Battery overlooking Princes Street, with Mills Mount Battery, the location of the One O'Clock Gun, to the west. Below these is the Low Defence, while at the base of the rock is the ruined Wellhouse Tower, built in 1362 to guard St. Margaret's Well. This natural spring provided and important secondary source of water for the castle, the water being lifted up by a crane mounted on a platform known as the Crane Bastion. The areas to the north and west of the Argyle Tower are largely occupied by military buildings erected after the castle became a major garrison in the early 18th century. Adjacent to Mills Mount are the 18th-century cart sheds, now the tea rooms. The Governor's House to the south was built in 1742 as accommodation for the Governor, Storekeeper, and Master Gunner, and was used until the post of Governor became vacant in the later 19th century; it was then used by nurses of the castle hospital. Today, it functions as an officers' mess, and as the office of the Governor since the restoration of the post in 1936. South of the Governor's House is the New Barrack Block, completed in 1799 to house 600 soldiers, and replacing the outdated accommodation in the Great Hall. It now houses the headquarters of the 52nd Infantry Brigade, the Regimental Headquarters of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, and the Regimental Headquarters and Museum of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys). The latter was first opened in 1995 by the regiment's Colonel, Queen Elizabeth II. Also nearby, in the former Royal Scots drill hall, constructed in 1900, is the regimental museum of the Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment). The military prison was built in 1842 for the castle garrison and was extended in the 1880s.
We made our way to The Upper Ward which occupies the highest part of the Castle Rock, and is entered via the late 17th-century Foog's Gate. The origin of this name is unknown, although it was formerly known as the Foggy Gate, which may relate to the dense sea-fog, known as haar, which commonly affects Edinburgh. The summit of the rock is occupied by St Margaret's Chapel and the 15th-century siege gun Mons Meg. On a ledge below this area is a small 19th-century cemetery of soldiers' and regimental mascot dogs. Beside this, the Lang Stair leads down to the Argyle Battery, past a section of a medieval bastion, and gives access to the upper part of the Argyle Tower.
Next was the oldest building in the castle, and in Edinburgh, the small St. Margaret's Chapel. One of the few 12th-century structures surviving in any Scottish castle, it dates to the reign of King David I (ruled 1124–1153), who built it as a private chapel for the royal family and dedicated it to his mother, Saint Margaret of Scotland, who died in the castle in 1093. It survived the slighting of 1314, when the castle's defenses were destroyed, and was used as a gunpowder store from the 16th century, when the present roof was built. In 1845, when it was "discovered" by the antiquary Daniel Wilson, it formed part of the larger garrison chapel, and was restored in 1851–1852. The chapel is still used for various religious ceremonies, such as weddings. On display outside of St Margaret’s Chapel is the 15th-century siege cannon known as Mons Meg. Mons Meg was constructed in Flanders on the orders of Philip III, Duke of Burgundy in 1449, and was given by him to his niece's husband, King James II in 1457. The 6-tonne (13,000 lb) bombard is displayed alongside some of its 150-kilogram (330 lb) gun stones. On 3 July 1558, Mons Meg was fired in salute to the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French dauphin François II. Workmen were paid to find and retrieve the stones from Wardie Mure, near the River Forth, some 2 miles (3.2 km) distant. Mons Meg has been defunct since her barrel burst on 30 October 1681 when firing a salute for the arrival of the Duke of Albany, the future King James VII and II.
We made our way to Crown Square, also known as Palace Yard, which was laid out in the 15th century, during the reign of King James III, as the principal courtyard of the castle. The foundations were formed by the construction of a series of large stone vaults built onto the uneven Castle Rock in the 1430s. These vaults were used as a state prison until the 19th century, although more important prisoners were held in the main parts of the castle. The square is formed by the Royal Palace to the east, the Great Hall to the south, the Queen Anne Building to the west, and the National War Memorial to the north. The Royal Palace comprises the former royal apartments, which were the residence of the later Stewart monarchs. It was begun in the mid- 15th century, during the reign of James IV, and it originally communicated with David's Tower. On the ground floor is the Laich (low) Hall, now called the King's Dining Room, and a small room, known as the Birth Chamber or Mary Room, where James VI was born to Mary, Queen of Scots, in June 1566. The commemorative painted ceiling and other decoration was added in 1617. On the first floor is the vaulted Crown Room, built in 1615 to house the Honours of Scotland: the crown, the sceptre and the sword of state. The Stone of Scone, upon which the monarchs of Scotland were traditionally crowned, is also kept in the Crown Room since its return to Scotland in 1996. There was a massive line up to get into The Royal palace to see the Crown Jewels which didn’t really interest me as I have seen the ones in London and so had Shaz only a few days before so we skipped this building and made our way to the Great Hall instead.
The Great Hall measures 29m by 12.5m and was the chief place of state assembly in the castle, although there is no evidence that the Parliament of Scotland ever met here, as is sometimes reported. Historians have disagreed over its dating, although it is usually ascribed to the reign of King James IV, and is thought to have been completed in the early years of the 16th century. The decorative carved stone corbels supporting the roof have Renaissance detailing, which has been compared to works at Blois, France, of around 1515, indicating that the arts in Scotland were relatively advanced at this time. It is one of only two medieval halls in Scotland with an original hammer beam roof.
The Scottish National War Memorial occupies a converted barrack block on the north side of Crown Square. It stands on the site of the medieval St. Mary's Church which was rebuilt in 1366, and was converted into an armory in 1540. It was demolished in 1755, and the masonry reused to build a new North Barrack Block on the site. Proposals for a Scottish National War Memorial were put forward in 1917, during the First World War, and the architect Sir Robert Lorimer was appointed in 1919. Construction began in 1923, and the memorial was formally opened on 14 July 1927 by the Prince of Wales. The exterior is decorated with gargoyles and sculpture, while the interior contains monuments to individual regiments. The memorial commemorates Scottish soldiers, and those serving with Scottish regiments, who died in the two world wars and in more recent conflicts. Upon the altar within the Shrine is a sealed casket containing Rolls of Honour which list over 147,000 names of those soldiers killed in the First World War. After the Second World War, another 50,000 names were inscribed on Rolls of Honour held within the Hall, and further names continue to be added there.
It was a great morning at the Castle with us leaving just before 12 noon. As we left passing the ticket office, the queue to purchase tickets was 200 people deep. I don’t think if I had of come that late, seeing that line that I would have waited to go in…….. So thanks Shaz for the hot tip-getting there first thing is definitely the way to go. We had lunch to get in and then we wanted to make the 2pm show called ‘Time For Fun”. As we walked the Royal Mile The Fringe Festival had cranked up since this morning and there were people everywhere. There were scouts handing out flyers for their shows, there were performers, mimes, musicians, you name it the Royal Mile had it. We scooted through a small market and then found a place called The Bank to have a 9.90GBP burger and beer meal before then heading to the ticket office located also on the Royal Mile. The line was massive and thankfully Sharon knew her way around and knew of another ticket office not far from where the performance was, so we walked the 15 minutes to that ticket venue, purchased our tickets without having to wait for 11GBP and in turn made it to the Assembly Roxy with 10 minutes to spare before show time. We joined the queue that waited outside, our tickets were checked and then 5 minutes before starting we were let into the small theatre. So the show was called Time for Fun by the Hand Made Theatre. It doesn’t scream like anything special but when the lights went down and the first part of the show begun it was mesmerizing. Basically this unique troupe from St Petersburg created an exceptional show using only their hands and their arms. There was no décor, props or costumes with all the actors dressed in black with a black stage and only well positioned lights, lighting up their moving hands. They caught your imagination with landscapes, willing heroes, funny situations, a ballet of birds, the writing of words and lots of things in between. It really was a fascinating show and something I am not sure I will see anywhere else again. It ran for an hour and we certainly got our value for money. There were probably a dozen more shows I would have liked to have seen but time was not on our side and we were a little stuffed from our mornings outing.
We walked back to the hostel and just chilled in our shoe box, getting our bags all packed for the morning, backing up photos and I got a blog written as well. I know I am going to fall so far behind with this blog over the next 2 weeks but I have the small relief that I have 11 days in Phuket to catch up as I am going in the rainy season and will be banking on a few days where I will be rained in and I will relish this and get up to date. 7pm rocked around and we decided to just eat at our ‘usual’ haunt-the kebab shop next door for the second night. I got a jacket potato this time and I have never seen so much meat and salad piled on a potato before, it was MASSIVE. I was under the impression that I wouldn’t be able to eat the whole thing but low and behold I managed to eat 96% of the darn thing and it was delicious! We quickly popped into the actual hostel reception to check our internet as out place in the lane doesn’t have access and then we were back to the shoe box for our last night before joining the Haggis Tour tomorrow and on the road again for the first time since the 30th April for me. It has been that long since I have been on a group tour and I’m looking forward to it. I just hope we have a nice group.
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