On Rose street I pass the old hotels such as the Kenilworth. From my first Edinburgh festival images I decide to focus on the old and the new. – the way they sit so cleverly side to side in Edinburgh’s historic lanes, closes and stairways. A town built on hills always has its long range views. It is good to venture off the main pavements – where you can see the unexpected. Edinburgh is a good place for walking and cycling – and with the castle, gardens, dips and valleys – often easier to get around than by car. At Biblos restaurant I remember they play an original playlist – how nice.
There is now
Blackwell’s where Thins bookshop used to be. Beside the Scott monument is a
large Ferris wheel. There are now large maroon and white trams running
along the centre of Princes street.
I walked up
the steps from the galleries of the mound, which take you quit suddenly from
the busy thoroughfare of Princes street to the Edinburgh old town. Instead of
heading to George IV bridge I decide to take the old steps past the Lady stairs
close and the tiny turret of the Scottish writers museum. There is a plaque
which states that when Burns came to live in Edinburgh, shortly after his first
book of poems was published, he lived here in the close. It is very near to the
castle and these hidden places are very unexpected. Burns must have felt right
at the heart of things. It must have felt like a bustling cosmopolitan place to
the Ayrshire born lad. Here he became the toast of the Edinburgh intelligencia
class.
I walked
past the statue of William Pitt on George street - a seagull sat on his head.
In 1783 Pitt, at 24, became prime minster. There was a great deal of corrupt
government he claimed he’d reform, but on gaining office he put all these
thoughts aside. Nothing ever changes....There is also a statue on Hanover street to King George who
came to Scotland and even wore a kilt here. I also passed
Martyr's monument Edinburgh I read of the radical Thomas Muir - an incredible
Scot - who along with others, set up the Convention of the Societies of Friends
of the People in 1792 and dared to march for democracy. For which he was sent
by the then Scottish Secretary of state to Botany Bay. A true radical thinker.
Each year I
travel over to Edinburgh for the August festival. It’s one of the highlights of
my year.
