I’m sitting in The Elephant House, having tea and chocolate cake. And I deserve it. But more on that later. For those of you not up on your Harry Potter trivia, this is where JK Rowling famously wrote much of her first book(s) because they supported students (they’re near the main University of Edinburgh campus) by giving away writing paper. All you can use. And she used a lot. It’s actually not bad tea and cake and not terribly expensive. I think she’s given them a bundle as a thanks and they also get a ton of business because everyone wants to sit in her cafe. That said, I was told that they had to stop giving away the paper to all the aspiring young novelists. It was really meant for students’ homework and such, not the next great novel. And um, yes this is the bathroom but people have gone quite insane graffitiing like crazy. Some are a bit funny.

So, yes, I took a Harry Potter related walking tour of Edinburgh today. The fee actually all goes to a children’s charity so I thought It would be a nice thing to do. I also thought we’d get a bit of a history of Edinburgh (that’s what people’s comments said) — but it was more HP. Which is what it was billed as so no blame there but I guess I’m not THAT big of a fan. In fact, I didn’t remember she wrote her books and spent so much time here. Oh well. Clearly I needed an education. All that said, we visited Victoria street which is adorable and apparently the inspiration for Diagon Alley. (We also saw the one for Knockturn Alley but it’s no longer a seedy looking street.)And the famous cemetery where she got inspiration for some of her names …. including Tom Riddle. The sad thing is that Potter fans have been trying to desecrate the grave and even play quidditch in the lawn next to it (people really can be yahoos) so they’re starting to put up barriers around it. The poor Riddle family! It’s not like they’ve hurt anyone (well that we know of?!). This is the student union at the University of Edinburgh campus where she was studying. And we saw the middle/high school where she was a student teacher (and which supposedly inspired Hogwarts — it’s a ritzy private school where they all wear blazers and tartans, and are assigned houses), but honestly Luca’s Hackley looked more like the movie Hogwarts than theirs did (to me anyway). But what do I know?!

There’s a whole industry that’s popped up around the HP legend here. Anything to help tourism but I guess it’s part of why it feels less authentic here. Yet it truly is lovely. I think I’d compare Edinburgh to Barcelona and Glasgow to Madrid. Funnily when I was in the Spanish cities I preferred Barcelona but I was there off season and it wasn’t at all crowded. Edinburgh isn’t terribly crowded, all things considered, but there’s definitely a higher percentage of tourists (particularly non UK) here. Anyway just random thoughts. I don’t think you should miss Edinburgh if you come to Scotland. It’s too beautiful to miss. Just choose your time wisely.

A note on Edinburgh. It’s formed by a volcano (which I climbed today) — which is why it has cliffs on one side and valleys, water, and fields all around. It makes for spectacular hills (in my two days here, according to my iPhone tracker, I’ve climbed 68 floors today and 52 yesterday — along with over 10 miles today and 6 yesterday. To be fair, on my castle days I’ve clocked 50 or so flights but my Glasgow-only days were under 10 flights?!). Anyway it’s really cool. You turn a corner and see this. I didn’t make it to the Rembrandt exhibit, unfortunately. But I made a quick stop at the National Museum of Scotland. (The photo below was taken later in the day when I passed by again and unfortunately you can’t really see — or hear– the bagpipe player dressed in full kilt regalia standing in front. He’s kind of near the two torches at the bottom of the stairs. Bagpipes are truly quite the scene-setter!) Huge. (The photo doesn’t include the new building.) So much stuff. Amazing stuff actually. Free. (I was told we have Queen Elizabeth to thank for this — all public UK museums are free because she wants educational things to be available to everyone. How civilized.) You could spend days if not weeks there. Though once again they seem to merge a bit of everything in one spot. Natural sciences. Technology. Arts. Fashion. Interior design. History of Scotland. And everything in between?! I spent most of my time in the history of Scotland since we’ve got pretty good museums covering everything else. From the Picts to the Stewarts and beyond. I already forgot most of it but it was interesting. (Just not very photogenic although they did have crypts and such. I guess I like taking crazy hanging animals shots instead.)

Moving on … views of and from “Arthur’s Seat” — the highest point of the volcano that looms over Edinburgh. You can see what it looks like from below (yes I climbed that).And then shots from above, some taken at the top and others on my way up.The last one has the palace of Holyroodhouse in the foreground. The royal mile has the palace on one end and the Edinburgh castle on the other. Both are worth seeing but I visited them in 1985 and I skipped them this time … I remember them being impressive, very large houses. Meantime, I was hoping I’d have time to contemplate the world from up there (according to legend, that’s what Arthur would do) — but there were always several people around and it was quite windy and threatening to rain — not very conducive to contemplation. Also the walk up was harrowing. It’s rocky and windy (both curvy and like Chicago) and you sometimes have to walk close to an edge which I don’t like. It was also steep in some spots. In fact I slipped on rocks on the way back down (tore my leggings and skinned my knee but survived). A nice Scotsman took pity on me and made sure I made it down safely the rest of the way. Meantime I was pretty proud of getting up there but at the top, there were older people (some of whom didn’t look to be in great shape) and then I saw an entire family — the wife with an infant strapped on her front, the husband with one of those intense child-carrier backpacks with a 2 yo in it, and their 4 yo who must’ve made it up on his own. And two dogs. Seriously. I was waiting to see the 80 yo grandma hop out … pretty humbling. I can’t imagine how they made it with all that baggage but they looked unfazed. And there was a constant stream of folks walking in both directions with terrible shoes and absolutely the wrong clothes. Ok, I wasn’t garbed that well myself and while I wasn’t huffing and puffing like some people, I also just didn’t feel that comfortable hiking through the hills. I’m going to blame my fear of heights/falling for slowing me down!

Anyway, I’m off to Dublin tomorrow. During my Scottish travels I’ve seen a few funny signs (many while driving so I couldn’t take those pics) and other humorous stuff. So I’ll leave my Scotland bit with a few of the photos … and yes, below are a Legos Petra and London bridge… I didn’t take pictures of their coral reef!!

Farewell Scotland!!