Arthur's seat

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Good morning! The B&B we were in was lovely. The lady of the house had broken her ankle just before we arrived which meant she couldn't clean our rooms or the bathroom. We didn't care much as long as it was warm and the bed was soft and the shower was hot and the breakfast was good.

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Today we wanted to climb Arthur's seat. So early morning we set foot to the hills of Holyrood park in the centre of Edinburgh and pretty soon we already could look out over the city. Here is a good walking map of Holyrood park.

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Edinburgh is actually built around a volcano. A dead one, but still... The views while going up were great.

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Or even greater!

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Of course there is not just the hill itself to be seen. We were about to visit a few sites on the way. The second place of interest soon showed itself. However close it looks, it still took nearly 20 minutes climbing to get there.

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On our way up we passed St Anthony’s Well. The boulder above it is an ancient stone as described here and here. It is said to have healing powers and it used to be a place of worship in days long gone. A wonderful little historic site with so much more to it then one would think at first site. Who made this? Who put the stone there and why? Did the stone have a purpose? Where did the water come from?

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And then there was St Anthony's chapel. A small ruin with records dating back to 1426 when the pope paid for its repairs. It's demise is believed to have started around the year 1560, what a pity. Now it just feeds the imagination.

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The information board tells about the history of the little chapel.

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Marjolein standing in the doorway of what once was the entrance to St Anthony's chapel. For how long  have people walked through that door? Did anybody live here? Who belonged here? Was it safe and secure? What happened here during the day?

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And then it was up, up, up again.

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Some parts of the path were actually quite steep.

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The views were fantastic.

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The wind today was insane. At the top of Arthur's seat there's a landmark. We climbed up to make a picture but we had to hold on for dear life not to be blown off. Since my camera was not on a strap I was a little worried ;-)

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The view over Edinburgh as seen from the Arthur's seat landmark. The wind was so strong that I had to wait 5 minutes before stepping down because I would have been blown over while standing on the one leg. Little did I know that by this time Marjolein had already been blown over, the result of that is shown in the very last picture of this blog post. It was an awesome climb with fantastic views. The wind was a bit dangerous though so we decided to not have lunch here but to go down a bit first ;-)

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Beautiful views while walking down again.

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We walked down the piper's walk which was a small and narrow path. Funnily enough we didn't encounter a living soul on this part of the walk.

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Marjolein posing in a spot that reminded us a lot of our walk along the "Sentier des douaniers" in Brittany last summer.

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More great views.

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And then the fourth site of interest showed up: Hutton's section. This is an old dig site where a geologist called James Hutton developed the ideas founding todays geology.

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The site was produced long ago when the volcano here was still active and tore and pushed the rock apart making it show the layers of different materials it's made of.

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All the different layers are clearly visible here.

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There is also a repository of iron ore. This particular bit reminds me a lot of the mining spots in World of Warcraft ;-)

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After having lunch at Hutton's section we continued our journey down again.

When we came back to the city we had a drink and cake. I was totally ready for a shower at that time.

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This is a piece of ore that I "found".

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After a quick visit to the B&B for a shower we walked back in to town to have a few drinks at a session that our friend Chic (bald guitar player in the back) had arranged in a pub called "The Hebrides", which I mentioned in my earlier post about Mary King's close, the close that used to exit right next to this very pub.

The session was great!

The Hebrides.

Chic having a chat with Min Ha and her sister.

Our drinks.

By the time we got home, Marjolein's finger had swollen and discoloured dramatically. It got bruised during her fall on Arthur's seat where she was blown over by the wind.

It was a great day. We have seen lots of interesting sites, had a great walk and awesome views followed by drinks with friends and wonderful songs played by good musicians and (not pictured) fantastic fish and chips in The Doric.

Happy birthday Marjolein! / The abbeys and the trees

Today, on Marjolein's birthday, a friend of her called Charles aka "Chic", took us on a tour around 4 old abbeys in the area know as The Borders in the South of Scotland. Also with us was a girl friend of Chic called Min Ha, from South Korea. Chic picked us up at 9:30 because we had quite some driving to do.

Chic is a photographer of old or famous trees. A mate of his likes photographing old abandoned castles, houses etc so he knows a lot of trees and abandoned sites. This was going to be a very interesting day!

The first stop we made was by request of Marjolein who is on a mission to see the 100 most famous or oldest trees in Scotland. No, she is not going for a wee here...

... this is the entrance to an incredible tree!

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This is the famous Great yew of Ormiston. Please click on the photo for a bigger version to see more of the beauty of this tree. It is indeed a magnificent tree and very old as well. The earliest official record dates 1474 but it could by twice as old!

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Then we drove through the beautiful Scottish country side to the first monument site.

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This is Greenknowe Tower. A little tower house built around 1581. A most interesting little, castle-looking, house that sparks the imagination!

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The house was once home to James Seton and his wife Jane Edmonstone.

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Apparently at some point in time the King ruled that no man was allowed to own more land than the King him self. So large pieces of land were to be split up and given to certain upper class people if they were interested. The rules said though that the new owner of the land was obliged to build a defendable house on it where, if needed, all other people living on that piece of land could fine refuge in times of unrest or even war.

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At ground level there was a cellar where food was stored, the meat hooks are still in the ceiling. This was a cellar-window. Half a century ago James and Jane looked through this window, now I was.

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This was the big hall that was their living room basically, right above the cellar, with a big fire place. They must have sat here often. I find it very intriguing when parts of someone's life from about 500 years ago are so... touchable. Know what I mean? They must've been poking in the fire, or leaned against the wall staring in the flames, thinking about things.

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And this was the view that James and Jane had from their top floor. Surely they must have seen the rainbow like this sometimes, just like I did today.

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The first actual abbey we visited was the one in Kelso. Unfortunately it was not open to the public today. This was a pity because it would've been a great monumental site.

Chic explaining things to Marjolein.

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Close to our next abbey we past another famous tree. It is called the Capon tree. To get an idea of it's size, Marjolein is standing on the left side.

There used to be a lot more of them, apparently...

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The second abbay to visit was the Jedburgh abbey.

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One side of the abbey seems to be largely intact. Unfortunately time was short and a visit inside was not for free so we didn't enter the abbey. It looked very interesting though.

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Looking in from the front of the abbey.

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Then it was time for lunch. I had a boiling Steak and Guinness pie. It was cold and I needed to warm up. I think Chic was trying to speak Korean here maybe ;-)

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On our way to the third site we stopped at Scott's view. The favourite view point of Sir Walter Scott, a writer and poet famous for writing Ivanhoe amongst other things.

A famous story tells us that he stopped here so often to admire the view on his way home, that his horses after a while stopped automatically. After Scott died and his funeral procession drove past this place (actually on the way to the next abbey, where he's burried), his horses stopped automatically again to give their master a last view.

Apparently, they really stopped at that time because an accident had happened. So much for a great story...

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Scott's view is rather fantastic indeed.

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So then we went to look for the third abbey. Full of laughter and good spirits, we walked the wrong way...

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The last resting place of Sir Walter Scott: Dryburgh Abbey.

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The abbey's grounds are very well kept and we had to pay for entrance. 15 others had visited before us today. Not a whole lot of people. Quiet place. Extraordinary that they are so well maintained when you think of it.

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A lot of the structure has been destroyed by the English during their raids. Luckily there was enough left over to burry a few special people, like for example Sir Walter Scott.

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Sir Walter Scott's grave.

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Also here there is a famous tree; the Dryburgh Abbey Yew. What makes this tree interesting is it's age. Apparently it was planted in 1136 by the abbey's monks.

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A church window, constructed a very, very long time ago.

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The chapter house is very well preserved. Monks were sat all around in this room to discuss matters of interest. I sat down as well, right there in the middle. I guess the chief-monk would've sat there ;-) It felt funny though, sitting in a spot where many monks have sat before, since the 12th century.

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Nice view.

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It was a great visit. By the time we left the sun was setting.

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There was one more site to visit but it had already gotten dark and the site was closed. This is the Melrose abbey.

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I managed to climb up on a wall and take some photographs over the fence wall. It looks nice in the dark I must say.

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After a great day out and about it was time for a bit of birthday dinner. I took Marjolein out to dinner at The Doric, a lovely little restaurant in the centre of Edinburgh.

On our way back to the B&B we had a night cap at Sandy Bells. (well, as you can't really have a "night" cap in the UK due their stupid opening hours, it's really an "evening" cap - is it not?)

Close to our B&B I spotted this shop logo on a wall. I like.