Holyrood and Arthur's Seat

Looking at this picture, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'd transported you to some rural castle in the Highlands of Scotland. But this is the top of Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence when she's in Edinburgh and the extinct volcano of Arthur's Seat in the background...all in central Edinburgh! It's lovely to be able to escape the city without even leaving the city!

Queen Victoria

This statue of Queen Victoria stands proudly at the foot of Leith Walk in the working class heart of Edinburgh. I can't imagine old Vic is too happy about being stuck on a plinth oustide a Woolworths and a betting shop, but that's where she is. I find it a rather odd place for her given that most other former monarchs have statues of themselves in the New Town or somewhere like that. Does anyone know if there is some strong bond between Queen Victoria and Leith?

Bus Station

Edinburgh's Bus Station used to be an utter disgrace and a true embarrassment to the city. Thankfully it was renovated over the turn of the century into a modern, airy transport hub fit for the nations's capital with part of the site also being turned over for retail. Next to the bus station, we now have a Harvey Nichols department store as well as a number of designer label shops. The location is also very convenient, only 2 minutes slow walk from Princes Street and under 5 minutes walk from the railway station.

Scott Monument from above

Doing the tea survey yesterday did provide me with the chance to see the centre of Edinburgh from a different perspective. I've shown the Scott Monument from before, but this photo lets you see the dimensions of it a little better and the way it really stands out in its surroundings. Thank you teawoman for inviting me up to the 7th floor of the Ramada Hotel!

Tea Survey

A rather unusual photo today to show the rather unsual market research survey I was talked into. I don't usually stop, but I had time on my hands while I was up town and the woman seemed friendly enough so I gave her 10 minutes of my time to answer questions on my tea drinking habits. Not content with asking me questions on the street, I was taken up to the 7th floor of the Ramada Hotel on Princes Street. As well as questions, I actually had to make six cups of tea using different teabags while she timed how long I left the teabags in and noted how much milk I added. Then I had to taste two cups of tea and answer questions on them, all the while trying to pretend that I care whether or not she wrote down that it was 'somewhat too strong' or 'much too strong'. Anyway, I got a free bar of chocolate and as I was seven floors up on Princes Street, I took the opportunity to go out to the balcony and take some photos! Any strange market research experiences out there?

Royal Bank of Scotland

This rather grand looking building is the paper headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the ten largest banking corporations in the world. Most of the HQ work is actually done in less grand looking office buildings, but this address on St Andrew's Square gives a better impression than some faceless business park on the edge of town. There is still a branch inside and if you're looking for somewhere to change money, whether from euros, dollars or even from English notes to Scottish notes, then the sumptious banking hall inside is worth a visit. The RBS is also a major sponsor in the world of sport, investing heavily in Europe's premier rugby tournament, the annual six nations championship involving Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Italy and England.

Religious Protest

We've just got rid of a pair of Mormons from the door...imagine disturbing someone when the World Cup is on!? I mean, they must expect to get even shorter thrift than usual! Anyway it reminded me of this nutcase standing outside one of the central cinemas protesting about the Da Vinci Code. I respect his right to stand there and protest, but it's very difficult to get any kid of coherent, sensible argument from this kind of guy. There was a similar guy who walked around the university area carrying a sandwich board with all sorts of 'you'll burn in hell' type slogans. I wonder if he's still there?! Anyone watch Father Ted? Does this guy not make you think of Ted and Dougal standing outside the Craggy Island cinema going "down with this sort of thing!"?

St Paul's and St George's

This church, St Paul's and St George's Episcopalian Church on the junction of Queen Street and Broughton Street, has a rather unusual roof design. Most people who walk past this church day in day out probably never look up to enjoy the architectural delights that the church has to offer...and to be honest, until I started doing this blog, I was probably one of them!

Leith Walk

This is Leith Walk, one of Edinburgh's main arteries and a street full of character with all sorts of little shops ranging from the ubiquitous Chinese and Indian takeaways to charity shops, mortgage advisors, traditional toyshops, hardware stores, shops selling saris and most recently Polish delis and restaurants. You can also see the very traditional Scottish town architecture of the tenement flats. These buildings would have been built in the late 19th century and most tenements will have two, three or four flats on each floor, depending on the size of the flats. The central stairwell is communal property and in theory should be looked after by everyone in the stair. Sadly, in many tenements, no-one takes responsibility for ensuring the stairs are kept clean. In days gone by, and even when I was a student, there was a bit of wood that got passed from flat to flat. When you got the bit of wood, it was your turn to clean the stairwell and if it wasn't up to the standard of the tenement matriarch, you soon knew about it!

Fringe tickets on sale today

Today was the opening day for tickets sales for the Edinburgh fringe festival - the largest arts festival in the world. This photo is an archive photo from last year's Fringe Sunday advertising a South African play. There are more than 2000 shows every day during the festival, the population of the city doubles and its is truly a fantastic atmosphere. Hint from a local - get here early in the festival so you can go to the preview shows for £5 a ticket or get the 2 for 1 deals! The only trouble now is that as the festival kicks off, it's time to go back to school as the new term starts mid-August!

Elie

As it was such a lovely day today, we went for a wee day-trip to the beach so I'm bringing you today's photo from the lovely harbour village of Elie in the east neuk of Fife, just across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh. We had a lovely picnic barbecue with venison and cranberry sausages and Aberdeen Angus steak burgers among other things and then went for a paddle along one of the beaches. Lots of people were brave enough to go swimming, including this guy braving the cold and conserving his dignity as he goes to join his mate in the water. Even a few seconds with my feet in the water was enough for me...after all, it's the North Sea! that said, I did do it when i was a kid!

Hope she said yes

I don't know if this is for real or not, but if it is real, I sincerely hope Emma said yes, otherwise Adrian must feel a bit of an idiot every time he passes this building just off St Andrew's Square. I've never heard of or seen this kind of proposal before anywhere so he would certainly get points for originality. If it's not real, I don't really get what it could be advertising. Any ideas?

Scotland at the World Cup

Given that the World Cup starts today, I thought that this would be a timely post. As the Scottish national team will not be gracing Germany with our presence this time around, many Scottish fans are lending their support to Trinidad & Tobago! Even our prime Minister Jack McConell has gone on record as saying he will not be supporting England, but instead will be backing teams with players playing in Scotland, such as T&T. T&T have five Scottish based players in their squad, including Collin Samuel from my team Dundee United, and the guy on this poster, Jason Scotland who plays for my hometown team of St Johnstone! What are the chances of Scotland scoring the winner when T&T plays England! There is even an unofficial Scotland World Cup song and you cannot find a T&T shirt with Scotland written on the back for love nor money in Scotland. Supply has not been able to keep up with demand.

Problems

Hey folks, no photo today or yesterday as I've had real trouble uploading to blogger recently. Yesterday the server was down for maintenance when I tried to post and today I was unable to upload and am now unable to access blogger using mozilla firefox. I'm writing this using safari, which won't let me upload photos either! Hopefully normal service will resume tomorrow for the start of the World Cup!

Summer!

Lots of people took advantage of the gorgeous weather today to spend time relaxing in Princes Street Gardens. With such a fantastic backdrop, it really is a wonderful place to lie back with a book and enjoy the sunshine and warmth. Many Scots however are so enthusiastic to see the sun that they strip off and don't take the same kind of precautions that they would on holiday. They seem to forget that it IS the same sun they get when they go to Spain and they still need to put on sun cream!

Portable Beer Kegs

At the rugby last week, the queues at the beer stalls were lessened considerably by the arrival of these wonderful guys and girls with beer kegs on their backs and plastic pint tumblers stored where the sun doesn't shine, at least, that's how it looked. It was the first time I'd seen these portable kegs and what a great idea they are too. Notice the guy in the background modelling the casual kilt look!

Footbridge

This rather unusual curved footbridge links the St James' Shopping centre with an underground car park on the other side of the road. The design is somewhat controversial and it is probably equally loved and loathed by Edinburgh residents. It does stand out, but although it is close to some beautiful historic buildings, it is in a fairly modern business part of town and personally, I rather like it.

Scottish Wedding Guests

At any wedding in Scotland, the vast majority of the male guests will wear the traditional Scottish attire of the kilt with everything that goes with it. Wearing the kilt has definitely become much more popular over the last 20 years or so, and indeed it is often worn informally as well when attending international football or rugby matches too. I ordered a kilt not so long ago and it's in the process of being made. the whole outfit is going to cost me a little under £1000, but it will last pretty much my whole life and it will certainly get used. Most visitors to Scotland like seeing men walking around in kilts, and there is always the temptation to know if the wearer is a true Scotsman or not!

Believe!

Sales of Mars bars in Scotland have undergone a massive slump since they re-branded themselves as 'Believe' bars. Their campaign was to believe that England can win the World Cup, however their rather silly anglo-centric marketing department rather forgot that not all of the UK will be backing the English team when the World Cup starts next week. So with egg on their faces, they put these adverts up in Scotland. The Scottish public is still not impressed and people are boycotting 'believe' bars in their droves.

Scotland 66 Barbarians 19

It was a glorious evening as we settled into our seats at Murrayfield, Scotland's national rugby stadium in western Edinburgh, to watch this test match between Scotland and the Barbarians, an invitational select touring side. Around 25,000 went to watch the game which meant the stadium was less than half-full, but it was fine atmosphere and the Scotland boys really put on a show. Nine tries, some great flowing rugby and 66 points on the board, 31 of them scored by this man, Chris Paterson. The photo shows him converting one of his tries. You can see more photos from the match and around the stadium at my flickr. Murrayfield is also one of the host venues for the 2007 Rugby World Cup to be held in France. We will play New Zealand here and backed by a partisan Scottish crowd, we might just beat them for the first time ever.

Expensive Taxis

Edinburgh taxi fares are among the highest in the world, according to a recent survey. At a cost of £7 for a 3 mile (about 5km) journey, Edinburgh comes in in 5th place in a ranking of the most expensive cities for taxi rides. Only Oslo, Geneva, Osaka and London were more expensive.

George Square

Here are some of the nice buildings which line George Square, the central hub of the University of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the University in their all-knowing wisdom, pulled down the attractive houses on two sides of the Square to erect some of the ugliest buildings in the city. The University Library resembles a multi-storey car-park, the David Hume Tower, at 13 storeys high is really too tall for the city and as for the Appleton Tower, it just needs knocked down. I will showcase these buildings in due course!

Slutty Cow!

With the colour they are bringing across the city, I can't resist showing you some more highlights of the Cow Parade. This rather slutty looking cow is obviously ready for a night out in Edinburgh...and with all the hen nights and stag parties in the city every weekend, she'll certainly be in good company.

Valvona & Crolla

If you're looking for wonderful cheeses, the best of Italian wine, the finest pastas, the best salamis and cold meats all served by knowledgeable and helpful staff, then Valvona & Crolla is the place to go in Edinburgh. Established in 1934, it truly is an Edinburgh institution known for its range and quality. Their main shop is on Elm Row near the top of Leith Walk, but they also recently opened a little Italian café in the fashionable new Multrees Walk.

Waverley Steps

Daniel from Miami requested a shot of the steps as you come out of Waverley Station towards Princes Street. As they're doing renovations at that part of the station, they've closed that entrance so I've taken the shot the other way round, looking down the steps from Princes Street. At the moment, you can access the station through the shopping centre, but the plan is to create a glass structure with escalators going in and out. Not sure how that will look up against the side of the rather grand-looking Balmoral Hotel, but at least it will keep you dry as far as Princes Street!

Police Box Coffee Bars

One rather unusual sight you'll see all over the centre of Edinburgh is old police boxes which have been turned into coffee bars. Obviously, the old police boxes fell out of use, but by turning them into these rather cool little coffee bars, the streets of the city have managed to retain a little piece of history while changing with the times. As I don't work in the city centre, I don't get much of a chance to frequent them much, but when I was a student, a hot coffee on the walk to a 9 o'clock lecture was a very welcome pick-me-up!

Edinburgh Cuisine

Edinburgh does have many fine restaurants which showcase some of the best of Scottish produce and cooking. However, our fish 'n' chip shops have a tendency to deep-fry in batter anything that sits still long enough. One "delight" you may come across in Edinburgh is the deep-fried mars bar...yes, it is as disgusting as it sounds! Bizarrely enough, they are usually found in chippies owned by 2nd or 3rd generation Italian-Scots!

Scottish Edubloggers

Ewan McIntosh organised a meet-up in the pub following the City of Edinburgh council's eLive conference which aims to promote the use of ICT in education. The Jolly Judge was the chosen venue, not because of the fine beer or vast selection of malt whiskies but because they have wi-fi, and as you can see these bloggers, John Johnston, Will Richardson and David Muir can't be parted from their laptops even while drinking.

A Young Cow-ple

Everyone seems to be enjoying the Cow Parade. Children shriek with delight and laughter when they see the various installations around the city, and this young couple couldn't resist the chance to have their photo taken on top of this brightly-coloured cow - only they didn't know I was taking one too!

Caricature Exhibition

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street is playing host to a rather cool exhibition of caricature portraits of weel-kent (well-known) faces from Scottish life. It makes a rather refreshing change from the very traditional portrait paintings you'll find in the rest of the gallery. Can you recognise the faces on the poster?

Rosslyn again

This will be the last of my mini Rosslyn series. The Da Vinci Code has obviously had a huge effect on the number of visitors who come to Rosslyn Chapel - many of whom come armed with a copy of the novel rather than a guide book! It is undergoing some restoration work at the moment, which was a bit of a hindrance to the film crew when they arrived to shoot the film. Hope you've enjoyed seeing inside Rosslyn Chapel and I hope you come to discover its secrets for yourselves.

Rosslyn carvings

I'm going to stick to Rosslyn Chapel today and show a bit more of a close-up of some of the carvings on the ceiling. Do these symbols hide a long-hidden or long-forgotten clue to the location of the Holy Grail? Whatever you make of the connection to the Grail and indeed to the Da Vinci Code, Rosslyn Chapel really is well worth a visit. In fact the little village of Roslin has another more recent claim to fame...anyone know??

Rosslyn Chapel

As the eagerly awaited film of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" is released today in the cinema, I thought I'd bring you inside the intriguing Rosslyn Chapel, in the village of Roslin about 5 miles/8 km south of Edinburgh, where the novel's dénouement takes place. Rosslyn Chapel has long been associated with the Freemasons, the Knights Templar and the search for the Holy Grail. Its carvings leave so many questions unanswered. What is it trying to tell us? How did a chapel founded in 1446 manage to contain carvings of corn - a plant not believed to be discovered by Europeans until Columbus landed in America? Does it still hide the secret of the Holy Grail?

Fettes College

This rather handsome Gothic style building is a rather exclusive private school, which goes by the name of Fettes College. This building, with its turrets and spires, provided the inspiration for Hogwarts in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels. The rather odd pink and grey striped blazers they wear as uniform may also have inspired her somewhat too. It is also the school attended by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair...not really the kind of up-bringing you expect of a "Labour" PM!

Building the New into the Old

The problem the architects of the Omni Centre were faced with was how to integrate this old façade into the new building. It is a listed structure and as such could not be knocked down. For a long time, all that was on this site was the old façade held up by support structures and a large empty building site. I think the architects did a pretty good job as the glass makes the old part of the building stand out, but they've still been able to use at as an integral part of the whole structure. It's the entrance to a nightclub called Mood, if anyone is interested!

Omni

This is the Omni Entertainment Centre and this is where the Edinburgh giraffes live, although they too have been joined in recent days by multi-coloured cows from the Cow Parade...fabulous! The city is a riot of colour! This site was for many years a bit of a scar on the landscape of central Edinburgh, as the building work just never seemed to start. I'll show you the reason for the delay tomorrow. Anyway, the Omni houses a cinema, a gym, restaurants, bars, a nightclub, a comedy club and offices on the upper floors. It's a good place to do a pub crawl on a wet evening in Edinburgh!

Multi-coloured Cows

Eric in Paris showed us the Paris Cow parade a few weeks ago, and also mentioned that it happened here in Edinburgh too. I had never seen it before, but yesterday, while it wasn't a parade - there were already 125,000 people in the streets for the Hearts victory parade, there were a lot of multi-coloured cows in Princes Street Gardens and around the National Gallery. There are even some flying cows on the Gallery buidling! Find out MOO-re about the Edinburgh Cow Parade and view some photos from BBC Scotland.

Giraffes

Like many other cities, Edinburgh has invested heavily in public art projects, some of which are loved more than others. This is one of the latest which was unveiled outside the Omni entertainment centre in July of last year. Officially entitled 'Dreaming Spires' it shows two giraffes made up entirely of recycled motorbike and car parts. It is the work of a Scottish artist called Helen Denerley. I like them. What do you reckon?

Hearts win the Cup

I'm cheating a bit today as this is not my photo, it's taken from BBC Sport, but as it's a huge event for the city of Edinburgh (well, half of it anyway), I thought I'd show a picture of Hearts captain Steven Pressley lifting the Scottish Cup after their victory on penalties against little Gretna (1-1, 4-2 on pens), the second division champions. This is the seventh time Hearts have won the Cup in their history and their first since 1998. Prior to that, they last won the Cup in 1956. Their local rivals Hibs, have been waiting a lot longer as they've not won the Cup in over 100 years. It's also been a good few days for the Scottish national team, winning the Kirin Cup today after a 0-0 draw against Japan. Our 5-1 victory against Bulgaria on Thursday, coupled with today's draw meant Scotland have actually won a Cup!! We might not be going to the World Cup, but there is quiet optimism for the future of Scottish football.

Say Cheese!

After seeing some glorious looking cheese in Wilf James's blog of Réal in rural France, it made me want to go out and buy some really good cheese, and photograph a great Edinburgh cheese shop at the same time. This wonderful place is on Victoria Street, a street I have showcased a few times before, and it sells all sorts of fantastic, locally-produced Scottish cheese as well as quality cheese from other parts of the British Isles and Europe. The smells as you walk past the shop are fabulous!

Bloody students!?

I'm sure statues in other cities get similar treatment, but for those unaccustomed to seeing statues bearing traffic cones, this is a very typical student prank. The only slightly unusual thing is that they've put two traffic cones on this statue of David Hume. Such a world-renowned philosopher and leading thinker of the Scottish Englightenment surely deserves better treatment!

Is it summer?

You can tell it's May and the start of the exam season as the weather over the last few days has been glorious. It feels like summer already with daytime temperatures around 24C here in Edinburgh. Lots of people have been out enjoying the sunshine around Arthur's Seat and Princes Street Gardens. The best we managed to do at school was to have lunch out on the grass. Lovely!

More Lothian Buses

Just to add a bit more colour, we have one of the shiny new buses, and the back of one of the older style. I don't know if this was done deliberately but the predominant colour of Edinburgh buses is maroon and the bus lanes in town are green. Can anyone guess the colours of the two Edinburgh football teams, Hearts and Hibs?? There is another bus company which operates in the Edinburgh area, First Bus, whose colours are grey, pink and purple...not as bad as it sounds. What is confusing for tourists is that if you a buy a day or week pass for one bus company, the ticket is not valid on the other company's buses. Also, bizarre fact, Lothian Buses which have the new style of number plate XX 00 XXX all have London registration plates rather than Scotland ones! This is because they can have LB as the first two letters standing for Lothian Buses!

Smoke-free and Proud

After Nicola's comment yesterday about our rather colourful trains and having shown you many colourful taxis, I thought I'd show you (part of) one of our typical Edinburgh buses. This one sports a rather clever and powerful advert about the smoking ban from Cancer Research Scotland. Most of the buses in the city are double-decker. They are modern, clean and Lothian Buses provide a very efficient service. The fares have gone up recently to a flat fare of £1 for a single journey, which can be as long as 20km from the eastern to the western suburbs, or £2.30 for an all-day ticket. While our trains are a total rip-off, I reckon our buses provide an excellent service at a fair price.

Inside Waverley

I'm bringing you inside the station today and you can see some people having got through the new ticket barriers, running to catch the train to Glasgow. The ticket barriers have been erected at the main stations in Edinburgh and Glasgow to cut down on people trying to dodge the fare on short journeys. The train companies say it's effective, but a lot of people find it a pain to be made to wait to buy a ticket to exit the platform, when they were unable to buy a ticket at the station they got on at, or on the train. Also if you arrive at the station without a ticket and your train is sitting there ready to depart, the chances of you catching it are pretty slim by the time you've gone to the ticket office to buy one. I can see the train companies' argument, but they really should install more automatic ticket machines in the stations and make the fare-system more user-friendly for the customers. A fact-finding trip to Japan would be in order for our train station operators.

Waverley Station

Nerissa and Sarah were both right, under the North Bridge and directly behind the imposing Balmoral Hotel, we have the city's main train station, Waverley. As a tourist, it's a nice way to arrive in the city because as soon as you come out of the main entrance, you're greeted with a glorious view of the Castle, the Old Town buildings, the Scott Monument and Princes Street Gradens. The only other cities I've been to which match the immediacy of such a fantastic view from the train station are Cologne with the 'Dom' right outside the front door, and Venice.

North Bridge and the Old Town

Yet another view from Calton Hill, this time looking north towards the Old Town and the brightly painted North Bridge. North Bridge is an important artery in this city, linking the Old Town to the New Town. Underneath North Bridge, there is no water - anyone know what's there? If not, I'll show you tomorrow. When you come to Edinburgh, your first stop really should be a trip up Calton Hill because the views all around are truly spectacular.

Sunset

This was the lovely sunset we got treated to while we were walking up the hill to the Beltane festival the other night. We've had really nice weather here for the last few days. Let's hope it continues to the weekend.

Dancing with Fire

Here's the last of the Beltane photos. In its current form, the festival was brought back to life by the foundation of the Beltane Fire Society in 1988. It started off as a small scale event, but has snowballed in recent years into one of Edinburgh's many festivals. On the hill, I certainly heard more foreign accents and languages than locals. The locals were the ones trying to evade paying the admission fee by climbing up through the woods onto the hill rather than coming up the pathway!

Edinburgh's Disgrace at Beltane

If you come to Beltane for the first time, and you're up the hill early enough, get a spot in front of the National Mounment (or Edinburgh's Disgrace.) We didn't know this and so when the action started, we had to push our way through to get a bit of a view of the fire rituals. We didn't get terribly close so this is one of those put your camera in the air and hope for the best photos.

Beltane

Last night was Beltane, the ancient Celtic fire festival. Beltane on 30th April welcomes in the summer, in the same way that Samhuinn (or Hallowe'en) on 31st October brings in the winter. We got on top of the hill at around 8, but nothing really happened until after 10 so there was a lot of sitting around in the cold while various people tried to entertain by running onto the little stage and revealing various parts of their bodies! I will show some more Belatne pictures in the coming days, and explain a little more about it, but here's a torch-bearing goddess to start with!