Edinburgh Military Tattoo, 2009

One of the tougher tickets for the Edinburgh Festival is the grand finale of the Military Tattoo. The tattoo, in case you didn't know, is a military band thing. In Scotland, that means drum and bagpipe marching bands, massed. The Tattoo, which supports veterans and their families, has been a favorite since 1947. Somehow, Vicki got tickets, months ago, and Saturday night we lined up with thousands of others to file into the stadium--actually, the grounds of the ancient castle--to see one of the more stirring events you can see anywhere. It goes on for a couple hours. Fortunately, the Edinburgh buses run all night, so we were back to Mortonhall by 3AM.

Backdrop of Tattoo, Edinburgh Castle

Massed bagpipe bands

There were other bands, this one from Tonga

And this one from Xian, China. I wondered how many Scots and others at the 
Tattoo knew of Xian, China's 4th largest city, with a population about twice 
that of Scotland

The drum corps from Basel nearly stole the show

More massed bands at the end

Finale: the Lone Piper on the Battlements

And then, of course, the Fireworks

Royal Mile

Edinburgh's Royal Mile extends between the two royal castles, Edinburgh and Holyrood, and it is an extraordinary mile of history, commerce, architecture, and, of course, the ongoing festival. We visited a number of shops, then, with some time to kill before the big event of the night--the grand finale of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which started at 10:30 PM--we went downtown and saw a perfectly dreadful movie, The Time Traveler's Wife. This is the price I pay for those extra shots of Bruichladdich, Talisker, Laphroaig, etc.

Royal Mile was bustling on Saturday morning

Looking across Waverly Bridge

More cityscape

Tasting at a Royal Mile whiskey shop...my first Bruichladdich, an Islay, smoky, 
fiery;  Vicki always asks for a taste, sniffs, then hands it to me for further 
investigation...

Cadenhead's is Edinburgh's oldest whiskey shop...the first to bottle scotch, way
back in 1842; introduced me to single malts in 1989

Cadenhead price list for bottling direct from the independent 
single malt producers

Edinburgh Book Festival

We spent a few hours at the book festival, mostly at the book store. The only two writers I was really interested in, Margaret Atwood and Alain de Botton, were both long-sold-out. All events are ticketed--not "free and open to the public."

The Edinburgh International Festival was in

full swing when we arrived. It goes on the

better part of a month and is really a cluster

of festivals...music, theatre, literature, etc.

And then there is the Festival Fringe, which

is all manner of other arts and entertainments,

hundreds of things from plays and musicals

to street performers.

Not least of the festivals is the book festival, begun in 1950,

one of the oldest and largest there is. It goes on for two weeks

and this year featured some 750 authors. Edinburgh, in large

part because of the festival, was the first city to be recognized

a UNESCO "City of Literature."

The whole book festival is held in Charlotte

Square, in the Georgian New Town. Well,

the book festival itself is held in temporary

structures on the square. Very compact...

but nice.

Here is the authors' yurt

And the whole thing proceeds a few blocks

from the Walter Scott Memorial, one of the

more impressive literary tributes around

Mortonhall

From Holy Island we drove north along the coast, into Scotland, making our way eventually to Edinburgh and the Mortonhall Holiday Park, our home for the next several days.

 A Highland bovine in the Mortonhall complex; this is what a hippie longhorn 
would look like

Mortonhall was a large baronal or ducal (or whatever) estate in years past; now 
it is a holiday park, holiday homes, condos, a golf course, tennis, restaurant, lounge, 
farm, and, yes, a crematorium; diversification is everything these days.

Tenting out of a Porsche; I love the style; Vicki and I did it in the   80s out of my
beloved 911SC; I still relish a moment in Colorado when, the battery dead, she 
actually pushed the monster to start it, while I sat in the driver's seat, laughing 
hysterically; she was afraid of it; with good reason;  but I now prefer our current 
rig; when camping

One sees all manner of rigs; this world-traveler is from Switzerland

Braes of Mar interim report

After a busy week in Edinburgh, we have moved on north to Braemar, a few days off prior to the Braemar Gathering, the Royal Highland Games, which HM the Queen usually attends. There is no wifi, no coverage, no internet here, except a machine at the local youth hostel. Consequently, there will be no blog for a few more days, but then tons of stuff from Edinburgh and here. Scotland is incredibly cool. Also cold, wet, blustery. But Scotland.

Updated editor issues

Well, unfortunately, I updated the Blogger editor, and have been having image/text problems since. Bear with me; I'll get this sorted out eventually.

More Holy Island

From the mainland, where we camped for the night

 

Seagulls on the tidal marshland

Flutterment

Tank obstacles. Would the Germans have landed this far

north? Anyhow, we felt very safe camping here. At least

safe from attack by the sea.

Time and tide...

 

Going

Holy Island

Just off the Northumberland coast, south of Scotland, sits The Holy Island, Lindisfarne, where St. Cuthbert was a hermit and headed a priory (sort of a sub-abbey); he was later bishop in Durham (or York?). His missionary work converted most of the north of England.

The Holy Island (that's really what it is called) is particularly cool in that to get to it, other than via boat, you have to wait for low tide. Then you can drive or walk. The road across is actually paved. But you have to plan your crossing, and return, in accordance with the tide tables.

Watching the tide come and go is always interesting, to me anyway. Other than driving a tidal causeway, and walking part of it, other "firsts" today including sampling mead and having a small dish of cockles with lunch. But enough of England, for now. Tomorrow we're in Scotland.



Another half hour and it is driveable

You have been warned

 

Priory ruins; originally founded by Cuthbert and associates

in 7th century, destroyed by Vikings, reestablished in 11th

or 12th century; Dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539; etc. Now

a national heritage site.

 

More priory ruins

 

Statue of Cuthbert

 

Castle (14th century I think) from priory

 

View of village and priory from castle

 

Bamburgh Castle, several miles further down the coast 

Just off the Northumberland coast, south of Scotland, sits The Holy Island, Lindisfarne, where St. Cuthbert was a hermit and headed a priory (sort of a sub-abbey); he was later bishop in Durham (or York?). His missionary work converted most of the north of England.


The Holy Island (that's really what it is called) is particularly cool in that to get to it, other than via boat, you have to wait for low tide. Then you can drive or walk. The road across is actually paved. But you have to plan your crossing, and return, in accordance with the tide tables.


Watching the tide come and go is always interesting, to me anyway. Other than driving a tidal causeway, and walking part of it, other "firsts" today including sampling mead and having a small dish of cockles with lunch. But enough of England, for now. Tomorrow we're in Scotland.

Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral from the west

South door knocker...for sanctuary 

 

Nave; first use of ribbed vaulting

Carved pillars; non-Christian designs?

Window treatment

St. Cuthbert shrine; more of him later

Venerable Bede shrine; England's first historian 

Note the almost Moorish look in this chapel 

South side view

Cloisters, abbey adjoining

Holy roller

Durham is not particularly huge, but definitely first generation English cathedral, noted for the carved pillars (also has entwined arches throughout) and first use of ribbed vaulting. Bede is importantly historically; and Cuthbert for pilgrimage/tourism. Durham is evidently the most holy cathedral in northern Europe. We've seen most of the rest, from Trondheim to Paris, etc., and this is the only one that does not permit photography inside. So the interior pix you see above are stolen off the web. I am still bitter.

Vicki adds:

York, England August 24, 2009

I am going to try to post a little more often-hopefully, once a week for those of you who want to know where we are but don’t have time for Mark’s long version. (Though it doesn’t take long to just look at the pix that he posts.)

We spent a very busy two weeks in France first with Rebecca for 4 days driving out to Carnac and then Rachel was picked up in Paris and the 4 of us spent two days in Rouen. For the week in Paris the girls rented an apartment with their boyfriends and we stayed in the campground. We had 7 days where we were sightseeing or commuting about 16 hours a day. It was fun but exhausting. Rebecca and Jeremy then left for a week in London; Rachel and Will then spent 10 days car touring western France and Provence. Mark and I crossed the Channel and started our 3 months in the UK. We have to stay here 3 months in order to go back to the continent to meet the terms of the Schengen visa laws.

The good thing is that we can slow down. We spent 4 days in Cambridge—only one sightseeing and punting the River Cam. We have a Heritage pass so we are also visiting many of the great homes where we can get in free. Mark is not wild about those but I enjoy them. We have gotten up to York after visiting Sutton Hoo for the Bronze Age ship burial and Sherwood Forest. We need to be in Edinburgh on Friday.

So far we have found England more expensive than France or Germany but not as bad as Norway or Ireland. The pound has gained quite a bit in the last two months so that is not helping. However, since England is small we are spending significantly less on diesel. It is very difficult to free camp here as we have been doing the last 3 months. Many parking areas have barriers at a 6 ft height even for picnic areas and there are not the rest areas along highways like other countries. There are however, farm sites that are listed in our Caravan Club book where they don’t provide showers etc. but only charge $8-14 a night. Most campgrounds are in the $22-30 range. I noticed in York yesterday that a Big Mac is $3.50 but the grocery stores are very good on sales so we just buy whatever. Fruit right now is wonderful and we picked blackberries this morning at our camping spot. I have given up cereal for breakfast and switched to scones and clotted cream—which I could eat 3 meals a day! Write to me. Vicki

Driving Around

Another abbey ruins--I've forgotten the name--they're all over;

before there were towns, there were abbeys 

View from one of our lay-by campsites in northern England 

The White Horse of Sutton Bank; they do these hill-side chalk

drawings (that is, scraping away vegetation and soil to reveal

the chalk underneath) all over the place; some are very, very old 

Another bucolic campsite view; this one had horses in the

pasture

But then every now and then you run into something like this