The real castle!

And here's a picture of the 'real' castle, high on the rock in the background. In the front left is the Fruitmarket Gallery, next to Waverley Station (right). The blue bus is the Airport Bus 100, waiting at its stop on Waverley bridge. Above it you see the National Gallery on the Mound. The blue domed building at the top of the Mound is the Bank of Scotland HQ. This well-known view can of course be seen from North Bridge.

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle on a blustery March day, as seen from the rooftop terrace of the National Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street - a place that cannot be beaten on views so if you find yourself in the area, do pop up - it's free and there's a lift!!

A Fresh Start

After an inexcusibly long absence, I am finally back! It may not surprise you that keeping up to date with the blog is one of my main New Year's resolutions.

Happy 2009 everyone!!

Walking to Work - Old Town

And finally, the view of all views - Old Town from the top of North Bridge. From left to right you can see: tenements along Market Street (bottom left); the spire of The Hub - a former church turned Edinburgh International Festival HQ; the Bank of Scotland headquarters on the Mound; the University of Edinburgh's New College - home to the School of Divinity; Ramsay Garden apartments and finally Edinburgh Castle.

That's me nearly at work - horribly late of course!! Hope you enjoyed walking with me.

Moody castle

I thought it was time for another picture of our most famous landmark, the castle. Today it's a rather moody one, taken from the top of the Mound.

Royal Mile 1 - Edinburgh Castle

Where better to start than at the very top of the Royal Mile, on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle? As you can see the stands are now up for the July concerts and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo which takes place every day in August.

The Royal Mile is in fact the oldest street in Edinburgh. A mile long, it stretches out along a narrow ridge of rock from Edinburgh Castle at the top, to Holyrood Palace at the bottom. From it, narrow ‘wynds’ and ‘closes’ run down the steep slopes to the north and south of the Royal Mile. For this reason, the layout of Edinburgh’s Old Town has often been compared to a fish’s skeleton.

Come back tomorrow for the next instalment of the Royal Mile tour (I am still away).

... and the view from Eildon Street

And as promised, this is the view you get from yesterday's street - over a large playing field and some rather unkempt tennis courts, over Stockbridge and onto the old town and Edinburgh Castle. This has to be one of the prime spots for the New Year and Festival Fireworks!

Rocky indeed!

To demonstrate the point I made about the castle on 26 May, here's a picture from the Grassmarket to show that it really does sit on a pretty impressive bit of rock! The Grassmarket itself - known for its quaint shops, pubs and 'vibrant' wildlife on a Friday and Saturday night - is being partly pedestrianised in a bid to make more of its picturesque character (hence the digger and roadworks).

After I took this photo I walked on past the second-hand bookshops in the west end of the Grassmarket, when I noticed this print in the window of an antiquarian printseller (apologies for the reflections but the picture was taken rather surrepticiously to avoid conflict with the owner):

Edinburgh city centre (view part 2)

As promised yesterday, here's the view part 2! With of course Edinburgh castle to the right and the rather less photogenic St Andrew's House (large bulky office block to the left).

What I find facinating about this picture is the deceptive evenness of height of all the buildings. Edinburgh slopes up quite steeply towards the city centre, and the castle is on a huge big rock that towers over everything else again - yet you would never guess that from this angle. Secondly, the towers/turrets/domes on the skyline itself are not at all in a straight line, but instead they are on two parallel streets half a kilometer away from each other. From left to right, you see: the top of St Giles cathedral (Royal Mile), the tower on the Balmoral Hotel (Princes Street), the Hub (church on Royal Mile), the Scott Monument (gothic spire on Princes Street).