up Calton Hill

I'd love to be able to take credit for this image, but it's Wikimedia Commons to the rescue yet again!

EDINBURGH, DAY TWO

Dammit, I am going to finish this story if it kills me.

I went to England for two weeks in June of last year. Yeah. And it's taken me this long to tell you about it.

Believe it or not, I'm almost done. Another three or four posts should cover it. Hang in there.

And so I left the company of my vampiric Romanian roommate and sauntered off into the sunny streets of Edinburgh, along with my irrepressible Canadian travel buddy, Jeff.

Well, not really. First I grabbed my computer out of my roofless hostel room and went down to Beanscene, a charming little coffeehouse just up the block. It boasted free wi-fi; free, that was, if you bought something. I got the cheapest and most innocuous mocha on the menu and sipped it while I got some business concluded. I penned an article covering the last two days' events and packed it off to my editor; THEN I went back to the Belford Hostel, rousted out Jeff, and sauntered off.

Now, one might very well marvel at our singularity of purpose. Rather than moon about the streets of the Scottish capital, gawping at everything in sight, making trite and unimaginative remarks upon this attraction or that, and vaguely postulating on whether it would be feasible to tour it in the 72 hours we had available, this day we had our act together. We zeroed in on our objective like a punctilious Patriot missile. We pointed our noses in the direction of Calton Hill and made a beeline for it down Princes Street.

Now, let me explain something. Edinburgh was once known as the "Athens of the North" for its cultural, philosophical and artistic achievements. The place was a regular brain trust. The perception of the Scotsman as a kilt-wearing, whisky-soaked, belligerent hayseed is a monstrous injustice. In truth, the average Scotsman (at least in the 18th and 19th centuries) was a kilt-wearing, whisky-soaked, belligerent philosopher, artist, and writer.

There's a monument up at the top of Calton Hill (a large rise in the center of the city, just east of New Town) that you ought to hear about, in light of this fact.

Calton Hill is central to the Scottish nation as well as its psyche. The headquarters of the Scottish government, St. Andrew's House, is on its southern slope; Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Palace lie at its foot; the New Parliament House, the Political Martyrs' Monument and the National Observatory are scattered across its surface. It's an important hill, the kind the Russians would've aimed the nukes at.

But this one particular monument at the summit of Calton Hill is the one I want to talk to you about. It's known as the Scottish National Monument, and it was officially built to commemorate the Scottish lives lost in the Napoleonic Wars. Seeing as how Edinburgh was "the Athens of the North," however, designer Charles Robert Cockerell decided to model the monument after the Parthenon, in Greece. Construction started in 1826...

...and ended in 1829, when the money ran out.

So now, basically, what you've got standing on top of Calton Hill for all the wondering world to see is, well...half a Parthenon.

The monument is now popularly known as "Scotland's Shame."

Compared to what the Dubliners call the Spire (the "stiffie by the Liffey"), that ain't so bad.

Jeff and I made a quick stop at the Old Calton Cemetery before heading up the hill proper. Some rather famous people are buried there, like philosopher David Hume. This is his tomb.

Nearby is a monument to all the Scottish soldiers who fought in the American Civil War. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a Scottish cemetery. This is, apparently, the only Civil War monument outside of the U.S., and (erected in 1893) the first statue of an American president in any foreign country. The six Scots honored (and interred either under the monument or nearby in the cemetery) are Sergeant Major John McEwan, Lieutenant Colonel William Duff, and Privates Robert Steedman, James Wilkie, Robert Ferguson, and Alexander Smith.

The cemetery is on the haunted tour of Edinburgh, which, as I mentioned earlier, Jeff had taken (while I lay sick in my bunk back at the hostel). Apparently there's a face on the back of one of the gravestones. I had to squint at it, but it was discernible. Whose face it is, I can' t be sure. If it's the person who's actually buried under the gravestone, that would be something. If it isn't, then somebody's looking over that dead guy's shoulder.

Photo credit: Jeff took this picture, not me.

Having assured ourselves that, yes, David Hume is actually buried in Calton Cemetery, we swung back out onto the road and climbed the rest of Calton Hill. I could tell you what we did and saw up there, but I think pictures will better suffice:

 

Those two likely-looking ladies were doing the same thing we were: looking around and climbing on the monuments. We gallantly offered to give them a hand (or a leg) up, but they declined for some reason. Jeff and I must look shiftier than we think.

There was some kind of marathon going on in Edinburgh that day. "The Seven Hills," they called it. Up and down, up and down these runners ran, through the seven largest hills in Edinburgh, finishing with Calton. The finish line was just behind us. We passed several very winded-looking people on our way back down.

And what did we do after we got down, you ask?

Well, I'll tell you. The incident's as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

...

Let me just reach over here to my side-table and consult my little red travel notebook—

Ah-ha!

We strolled across North Bridge (connecting New Town and Old Town by linking up Princes Street and High Street directly). And so we found ourselves back in Old Town, where we'd been wandering around yesterday, thinking we'd suddenly been transported back to medieval times.

 

Again, our singularity of purpose would've gobsmacked the most fundamental hermit. We were in search of one thing, and one thing only. This time, however, we penetrated Old Town not in search of historical artifacts, or medieval fortresses, or half-built monuments, but something completely different:

To hasten our demise with artery-clogging comestibles.

No shit. Seriously. We had food on our mind. Food, junk food, and plenty of it.

First on the list: pizza.

Now, Edinburgh being the cultural and artistic hub it is, a crossroads of international taste and intellect, there was a surprisingly large amount of artisanal pizza joints around town.

We found one just across North Bridge, a little place called Pizza Express. Highbrow sort of joint. You can enjoy a glass of wine with your Veneziana, Sloppy Giuseppe or Il Padrino. I had the latter: chicken, pepper, zucchini, and mushroom with mozzarella in pesto sauce. Dynamite. I had no clue that pizza was a gourmet food. I forgot I was in Europe. Anything can be gourmet in Europe, as long as you use expensive ingredients with long names and tack on a glass of vino.

Our worldly appetite slaked, we adjourned to the National Museum of Scotland, there to satisfy our intellectual and artistic one.

But that's another story.

Stick around and I'll tell you about the Declaration of Arbroath; the Monarch of the Glen; James Watt and his affinity for boiling water; the befuddling layout of the National Museum; and of course, more booze.

TO BE CONTINUED...