The Royal Mile

It is Christmas in Edinburgh and on Christmas day, we decided that we wanted to walk the Royal Mile, from Edinburgh Castle down to Holyrood Palace. I have only been to Edinburgh during festival season and after one attempt of walking the mile with close 2 million other people, we avoided it. I wanted to see the castle without the standing for the Military Tattoo in front of the castle gates, and enjoy the view down the street, without getting hit for money or to see such-n-such play.

The snow was picking out all of the little details on the gates and the walls. There were surprisingly a lot of people also doing what we were doing.

The city itself was still covered with snow-- even though it hasn't snowed in several days. The view to the New City is blocked by construction (they are adding stands that will fold into the ground-- very hi-tech), so we looked out to the south of the city.

Towards Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crag to the south east, with the Grassmarket in the foreground.


We walked down the mile towards St. Giles, which was letting out its last service. We went in to see the renovations that had occurred, and the church was still warm from the masses. They had done some extensive work since we were last there, namely on refurbing the windows, which as just incredible.



Edinburgh is famous for those Closes and Wynds and some alleys. Most have stairs that lead down, revealing that the houses on the Royal Mile are really 5-6 storeys tall in the back. I am standing in Advocate's Close, where Lord Advocate Sir James Stewart lived from 1692-1713. The street was also home to Sir John Scougal, the royal painter for William III and Queen Mary.

After about a 30 minute stroll down the hill, but not quite to the palace, we were frozen enough and couldn't feel our toes. We turned back to walk up the hill and went home to enjoy a nice cup of tea and some Stilton.