A Foray into Edinburgh by Motorhome

Zagan the motorhome is stood on gravel in a sea of damp, well-trimmed grass at Mortonhall Caravan and Camping Park (N55.903913, W3.180065) but we’re off in an hour or so and I’ll finish posting from our next location. It’s early November as I write, and it’s steadily raining. Ju’s been out for a run and is currently enjoying the site’s endless hot showers (top tip: take a waterproof bag into the site showers as there’s never enough dry space to hang your clothes up!).

The site here is open all year, and is a 30 min bus ride south of Edinburgh (bus #11 departs from outside the site, £1.70 per adult each way – have the correct change or use your contactless card – get off at Princes Street for access to central attractions). It’s costing us £22.75 a night for the two of us including electricity, and we’ve opted to stay a couple of nights on our way north to go and have a quick look at Scotland’s capital city. There’s a useful map of attractions in Edinburgh here.

The route here was easy, flowing west along the A1 past the imposing Torness Power Station, which had me reaching for Wikipedia just to check it’s a nuclear plant, as the signage wasn’t clear (it is). The article had a section on incidents which intrigued me. Although there was no mention of Homer Simpson-like operators accidentally releasing radioactive material, the plant was once knocked off line by a massed jellyfish attack, and another time by seaweed blocking the water intakes. An RAF Tornado also crashed within a mile of the plant, the pilot being thanked (by all of us I’m sure) for steering clear of the plant when his aircraft got into difficulties.

From the A1 we joined the A720 and finally turned north once we were at the soft underbelly of the city, no tight spots squeezing past cars, no dodgy junctions, easy. For once we’d pre-booked the site, thinking it might be busy with the firework display advertised on the interweb, which it wasn’t, as the site stopped having a display a few years ago. The city, it turns out, doesn’t bother much with displays either these days, at least not on Bonfire Night, but it had plenty of other things to keep us entertained.

I’ll fess up: I’m not well suited to big cities, which I put down partly to my laziness (I’m rubbish at navigating public transport, but thankfully Ju is a wizard) and partly to being drawn more to open landscapes than to closed-in streets. When I think back though, I have very much enjoyed some of the continent’s cities: the calm and culture of Paris, the vibrancy and eye-widening architecture of Barcelona, the litre beers and enormous Deutsches Museum of Munich, the ancient history of Athens, the list could go on, but I’ll spare you.

We arrived at the campsite on a Saturday afternoon and by the time we’d parked up, sorted the van out, got the bus and walked to the castle, it was pitch dark. There were a few tourists walking the Royal Mile which extends east from the castle like an arrow, casting glances into the brightly-lit displays of tartan, knitwear, single malt whiskey and other Scottish staples. We soaked it up a while before heading down into the town, our spirits lifted by the sight of fifty or so folks in a walking silent disco (wearing headphones so they all heard the same music but we outsiders could only hear their singing). As they crooned out the words to Livin’ on a Prayer, I couldn’t resist a bit of air guitar as we passed. One of their guides bounced past them all sharing high fives. It looked great fun.

Big cities, it turns out (how old am I?) are busy with revelers on a Saturday night and we spent a little while hunting out a Wetherspoons with a spare table (which we had to launch ourselves at as the previous occupants arose in order to secure it from fellow table vultures). Fortified with a meal, we headed back to the van.

The following day we geared up for some cool and wet weather and headed back into the city, with a rough agenda to do as much free stuff as we could. We started with a walk up Carlton Hill for a look out over the city. From there we spied Arthur’s Seat, a 250m high peak which appears about ten miles away but is only about a 2 mile hike past Holyrood with it’s modern parliament building and more traditional palace. The walk’s on a good path with some worn rocks at the top, and was a tad muddy; walking boots made more sense than new white trainers, or ballet pumps both of which were being worn by our fellow hikers . Reaching the top the cloud had got there first and we stood smiling with a view of nothing, being blasted sideways by the wind.

Back at the base of the rock, which seems weirdly rugged and remote while being so close to the city, we found another pub and were fed again like king and queen before taking ourselves into the free (donations accepted) National Museum of Scotland. Ju’s eyeballed the fact Dolly’s in there, stuffed and rotating, the world’s most famous ex-sheep having been cloned from her mother. Standing up close she looks like a stuffed sheep, nothing more, but looks can be very deceiving eh?

The museum’s huge, it turns out, and fascinating. A couple of hours weren’t enough to do it justice as we found ourselves staring at a first edition Origin of the Species, watching a video of the life of pre-automation lighthousemen, launching a hot air balloon, feeling the incredible cross-section of a cable from the Forth Road Bridge, trying to work out what the skeleton in front of us was (an American Bison), peering into the cockpit of David Coulthard’s Formula 1 car and hundreds of other exhibits. The walk had taken it out of us though, and we left flagging having seen less than half of the place.

Outside we walked down the middle of the street, finding ourselves enjoying Edinburgh’s Open Streets initiative, which closes access to parts of the city for cars. A few folks played football with the kids or rode bikes up and down the road, although the wet weather put a bit of a dampener on things.

Next up we grabbed a photo of the statue to Greyfriars Bobby, the pooch who remained by his owner’s grave for 14 years, ostensibly out of loyalty but more likely because the locals fed him (and may even had swapped him for another pooch when he died). After that, we took to the bus and after a bit of telly hit the sack, done in!

In only a day and half we could only ever get a bit of a sniff of such an iconic city, but it’s hammering down with rain all day today so we’ve opted to head off, which we need to do in the next nine minute’s or we risk incurring the wrath of the site owners, so I best be off!

Cheers, Jay