Seven Hills and a Shed Load of Rain

"Would you ever want to be a travel writer?" my friend asked when we were young and dreamed of fame and fortune.  We agreed it would be wonderful to be Judith Chalmers and risk looking like a wrinkled prune for the chance to see all those fantastic places and stay in the top hotels of the world.  I was always concerned about the eternal problem these writers must face.  The problem of honesty.  Can you really write, "being wedged into a flying sardine tin full of boring people, who fart and bray and dig their elbows into you is not my idea of fun and I really can't think of a worse way to begin a holiday."?  It's like being a food writer.  That always appealed until I think about how I would feel if forced to eat fish.

Before any holiday I take a trip to the library, borrow several books about the place I'm going, read them from cover to cover, put them on the bookshelf, forget about them and have to pay fines larger than it would have cost to buy the book.  I always find these books to be lacking something and I'm tempted to think that that thing is honesty, or maybe perspective.  Travel books like an Engineers Guide to Edinburgh would make fascinating reading for the Long Suffering Husband.

So here is an honest travel report of a weekend in Edinburgh, written by someone who likes walking, books, music, cake, eating, sun and is married to an engineer.

If you go to Edinburgh you will do a lot of walking.  It's not a city for the faint-hearted.  You will be deceived by the map.  The Royal Mile (a stretch of road you assume is a mile long) gives you the impression that Edinburgh is a compact city, which it is but maps don't show the hills.  Edinburgh, like Rome is built on seven hills, although no one can agree what hills are included.  There is a rather large hill, with some Olympic Rings on that isn't included as it is man made.

Why a city with seven or more hills already needs to add more is beyond me.  

Some of the hills are great fun.  We climbed up to St Arthur's Seat, which was brilliant but exhausting and I really missed the dog.  It's worth doing because you get a fantastic view of the city.

If you are going to Edinburgh, I would recommend going with someone who walks up hills at the same pace as you do.  The Long Suffering Husband takes every hill at a march and makes each one a personal challenge.  This was the view I had for most of the holiday.

Edinburgh is fantastic for someone who likes books.  I took my own personal nerdy bookish tour of literary Edinburgh and I expect the book festival would be fantastic.  I had an Ian Rankin tour app on my phone and so was able to look at several places where Inspector Rebus drank or found bodies.  I particularly liked this app's description of West Bow/Grassmarket.   This pretty little area was the home of Major Weir (who Rankin features in the prologue to Dead Souls as a headless coachman).  Apparently Major Weir and his sister lived lives of extreme piety and preached from a pulpit in the street.  Their followers were somewhat shocked when the Weirs confessed to leading a double life of sorcery, bestiality, incest, black magic and necromancy.

We went to see the home of Robert Louis Stephenson.  The guidebook said, "looking at this property it is easy to see where he got his inspiration to write."  This is a beautiful Georgian house overlooking a park.  How can that have inspired Treasure Island or Kidnapped, unless he hated living there and spent his life dreaming of escape.  It looks like a pretty nice house to me.

Although Dr Who has nothing to do with Edinburgh it probably is the only place where he could safely land without standing out too much.

Alexander McCall Smith is a writer I particularly like.  He plays the tuba and lives in Edinburgh and although he is famous for his books set in Botswana he wrote a book called 44 Scotland Street.  We trudged all through the 'new' part of Edinburgh in the rain (how can Georgian architecture be new?) looking for Scotland Street.  I wouldn't let the Long Suffering Husband ask anyone for fear that they would point and laugh and say, "Oh, you're the geek that reads books!"  Some childhood experiences never quite leave you!  Eventually, we found Scotland Street and as I was having a private chuckle that the biggest number on the street was 39 a woman appeared from the door and said, "Are you Betsy and Mike?"  The Long Suffering Husband was tempted to pretend in the vague hope of a cup of tea and a slice of cake but what if Betsy and Mike had been there for a wife swapping party?

The literary Edinburgh that everyone knows about is JK Rowling and Harry Potter.  When she was a struggling single mum she would sit in local cafes and write.  All over Edinburgh you can see inspiration for Hogwarts - every school is a big old Gothic building.

The Elephant House is the most famous of Edinburgh's coffee shops where JK wrote.  This cafe on George IV bridge has almost become a shrine to her.  Not in the place you might expect.  They have cashed in slightly by putting "birthplace of Harry Potter" on their Elephant House umbrellas (everyone sells umbrellas in Edinburgh) but it is the toilet where her fame really shines.  The toilets are absolutely covered in graffiti about JK Rowling and Harry Potter.  People have written all over the walls floor and ceiling.  There is, naturally, a lot of toilet humour such as instructions for how to enter the Ministry of Magic,  comments about flushing Dark Lords, Mischief Managed and swearing that they are up to no good.  There are lots of love hearts and I was quite surprised at the popularity of Snape.  Several 'rest in peace' comments had been left and it seems as though the world is still morning the tragic loss of Dobby.  And then there were the comments that made me feel sad and humble.  The comments that must make Ms Rowling cry if she were ever to read them.  It made me wonder if she is ever able to go back to that coffee shop now she is famous.  I love this coffee shop but the Long Suffering Husband hated it.  The service was appalling.  It's the kind of place where you could order a coffee at 9am and no one would ask you if you needed anything else until about 5pm.  

A weekend in Edinburgh is not long enough if you like eating.  You can't move for restaurants, pubs and cafes.  The Long Suffering Husband flirted with a woman on the plane who recommended a wonderful Tapas restaurant on George Street and it was a fantastic recommendation.  If I close my eyes I can still taste it now.

When you take a trip with an Engineer you see a whole different side to the place.  We booked a secret hotel with Hotwire.com and ended up staying at the Sheraton. I was interested in how comfortable the bed was but he was very excited by how the bathroom unit was made.  I dare not let him have the camera or we end up with pictures of pipes.  On the aeroplane he freaks out the other passengers by discussing how the plane stays in the air and stops random car travellers to tell them that their catalyst has broken and the stench needs to be fixed immediately.

Now that I've been home a few days and my calf muscles are beginning to recover I would thoroughly recommend Edinburgh.