Elvandale, Dunhead, Midlothian, Scotland

Arriving in a new town or region, one ventures out tentatively into the surroundings, checks out the lay of the land as per paper maps, or maybe these days on the internet, but it takes some time to really get to grips with the real geography of a place. As we returned to the Park and Ride by bus today, I felt I was starting to get a handle on this great and beautiful city of Edinburgh even if only from a tourist perspective.

Edinburgh, as I have already explained, is built on a series of volcanic peaks, and the urban land, from our experience, is set over a series of ridges. We are camped directly to the south of the centre, and to travel in, we enter over the Braid Hills, then descend only to rise again on to the ridge on which the Old Town of Edinburgh spreads, the Royal Mile stretching along the top of this first ridge with the Castle at one end and the Palace of Holyrood which we have yet to visit, at the other. Further to the north is a great ditch-like area, filled with the Princes Street Gardens, the buildings to the south rising like a great wall, none so much though as the battlements of the Castle. On the northern edge of the parkland is the New Town, itself over two hundred years but in contrast to the Old. 

When George Drummond became Lord Provost in 1725, he made schemes for the expansion of the city. Work began on draining the Nor’ Loch below the Castle in 1759, a task that was to take some sixty years. The North Bridge, linking the Old Town with the main road leading to the port of Leith, was built between 1763 and 1772, and in 1766, following a public competition a plan for the New Town by twenty two year old James Craig was chosen. The First New Town as Craig’s plan came to be known, received a whole series of extensions in the early decades of the nineteenth century. 

Today the general layout of the city was revealed to us as we travelled into the city, walked extensively about it and finally caught the bus back to our Park and Ride, and I can say that it pleases us immensely.

Our planned destinations today were the city’s art galleries and we started with the National Gallery of Scotland, built as a “temple of fine arts” in 1850. While it is not as large as many galleries we have visited elsewhere, it houses some very fine work and we enjoyed our visit very much. Fortunately those who seek out art galleries are in smaller numbers that those who visit the Castle, which made for a much more pleasant experience. 

There is a free bus to transport art appreciators from the two galleries that make up the National Gallery to the two galleries of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, both situated in other parts of the city. We had about half an hour to fill before the next scheduled connection, so we shouted ourselves to coffee from the Gallery café and sat on the terrace overlooking the East Princes Street Gardens fast filling with sun seeking holiday makers and travellers. It was the very best spot to sit and enjoy our coffee.

The “free” ride in the little bus is not really so, because it is run by a charity who relies on donations and one is obliged to drop coins into the box held out in front of the entry door, but then it is so with most “free” attractions that have large perspex boxes at their door with suggested amounts; we were happy to oblige.

Most galleries of modern art amuse and entertain us, but rarely truly impress; this did, with little within that can only beg the question: “But is it Art?”. Certainly it would be a lie to say we liked everything, but we did think it well worth the little bus trip out of our way.

But I must add that the traditional collections in art galleries normally include art up to at least last century and their sister galleries will be the suppository for the real odd ball stuff turned out in the last century, much of it outside our ken. This is not the case with the Scottish collections; the modern art gallery includes work back to the Impressionist and similar eras, therefore it is likely that the average art appreciator is likely to find much to their taste, even if they remain “ignorant” modern art connoisseurs such as myself.  And yet that suggests I find most in the traditional galleries to my taste; the National collection here in Edinburgh has a large collection of old religious and classical themed work which is rather tedious to view, even if one can appreciate the basic talent of the artist. It is just a shame they wasted their efforts on such fantastical rubbish.

Rather than wait for the return bus, we decided to walk back into the city centre, and set off from yet another ridge to the north of the centre, down steeply to the Waters of Leith, crossing at the village of Dean, then climbing equally steeply back up to Queensferry and Princes Streets. There we joined the crowds of tourists all enjoying the even warmer sunshine and the fabulous views across the “ditch” to the Castle and down into the lovely Gardens. We stopped to buy ice-creams and to take a million photos, then walked further eastwards until we arrived at the North Bridge, which took us up across the Royal Mile, and on up to the streets of the Old Town where we caught our bus back home. 

It had been yet another fabulous day in Edinburgh!