Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh castle sits on a crag, the remains of an extinct ancient volcano. When we were there, a massive spectator stand was going up along the entrance to the castle. Massive steel scaffolding, tiered seating, in preparation for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in August. The structure throws the old and new into sharp relief.

We found the One O’Clock Gun first. A 105mm artillery piece, sitting there looking entirely capable of ruining your afternoon. It has fired a time signal from the castle every day since 1861, except Sundays, Good Friday and Christmas Day. While we saw the gun, we did not wait the ceremony.

We went down to the Battlements Walk instead to take in the views of Edinburgh all the way to the Firth of Forth.. The walk runs along the outer walls and opens up to a wide view over the western side of the city. We can see the New Town grid laid out below, hills pushing up in the distance. On a clear day that we went, the Forth of Firth was very clear in the distance. Although it was sunny, the wind hitting us was chilly.

At the heart of the castle

St Margaret’s Chapel was next. This is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh and almost comically small. Maybe 20 people fit inside at once, and that’s a generous estimate. A queue had formed outside, which says a lot about how much people want to tick it off the list. We waited, stepped in, looked around, and were back outside in five minutes. Small but worth doing.

From there we joined the queue for the Scottish Crown Jewels, which are the Honours of Scotland. The queue moved fast and we were inside quickly. The room held three items: the Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of State. A bit of a disappointment as we thought there would be more. Three items carrying 500 years of Scottish history, and the Crown dates back to 1540.

The Great Hall saved the best for last. The hammerbeam roof spans the entire hall without a single column holding it up. This is medieval carpentry doing something that still looks impossible. The walls carry weapons and armour, pikes, swords, shields and helmets, arranged in patterns that make them look decorative and deadly at the same time. My wife and kids was checking them out. They have been playing The Legend of Zelda and the weapons on the walls matched almost exactly what Link carries in the game. It’s a good experience for them to see the weapons in real life and how they are used against the enemy.

Palace of Holyroodhouse

Early morning the next day, we went to Palace of Holyroodhouse. There were no queues and we get to walk straight in. Without a crowd, we get to spend more time to admire the rooms. They are not big and a crowd would stop us from taking our time.

No photography allowed inside as it is a still a royal residence. We were each given an audio guide at the entrance. The audio guide also has activities for the kids kids. There are questions, things to spot, puzzles to solve as we moved room to room.

The Great Gallery was my favourite. The walls are lined with portraits of 95 kings and one queen, all painted by the Dutch artist Jacob de Wet between 1684 and 1686. He painted roughly one every two weeks to hit his deadline. It was pointed out that the noses of the paintings look similar, every single face has the same one. It was his way of showing family lineage, a visual shorthand for shared bloodline across centuries of monarchy.

History of Holyroodhouse

The palace has stories everywhere if you know where to look. Mary Queen of Scots lived here in the 1560s. Her secretary David Rizzio was stabbed 56 times in her private supper room by a group of conspirators that allegedly included her own husband. There is a “puddle of blood” with a plaque marking where he was stabbed. Joke has it that every morning the staff would paint the puddle with red marker.

Bonnie Prince Charlie held court here in 1745 during his push to reclaim the British throne for the House of Stuart. He stayed six weeks. It was the closest the Stuarts ever came to pulling it off.

The Royal Mile

The Royal Mile connects the two ends of Edinburgh’s Old Town, Edinburgh Castle at the top of the hill and the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom. It is exactly what the name suggests, a mile of road running straight between a castle and a palace. Walking it today feels like a tourist trail, lined with shops, pubs and tartan everywhere you look. But stand still for a moment and you realise you are walking the same road that people walked for centuries to reach the castle. Back then there was no bus, no taxi, no cable car. If you wanted an audience with the monarch or had business at the castle, you walked. Up cobblestones, on a steep incline, in whatever the Scottish weather decided to throw at you that day. The road has not changed much. The cobblestones are still there. Walking up even a section of it today gives you a small sense of what that climb meant before the city grew up around it.

Regal Tours

We bought the Regal Tour package from Edinburgh Bus Tours. This package gave us access to Edinburgh Castle, Palace of Holyroodhouse and Royal Yacht Britannia. We took the 48 hour package, which let us get on the red, blue and green buses for a tour around Edinburgh. We had to book a time to visit Edinburgh Castle when we collected our tickets with the agent. Since we were going there as our first stop, he told us which bus to take and gave us the stop time near Edinburgh Castle. There were some diversions on the day we went due to Edinburgh Pride Parade. A point to note, there’s a service provided by Big Bus Tours that operates their own line. Don’t get on the wrong bus.

Check out our London and Edinburgh itinerary