Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Grassmarket and Victoria Street

Besides cemetery, we also wandered around Grassmarket after our visit to the castle. As you can see in the photo above, the castle is just above Grassmarket. We walked down the stairs from there and ended up here. It was kinda like the same way when we got to the Castle Terrace in the morning for the weekend market. If you have strong knees, Edinburgh is very very walkable if you knew where all the shortcut stairs are!

As this was a Saturday, the Grassmarket was packed with people just chilling out in the lovely Spring weather. There were lots of eating places here, and everyone seems to love outdoor seating. Do they not have crows or bird who sits on you here???? There was also a weekend market nearby, almost similar to the one at Castle Terrace in the morning that I suspect maybe like the Pasar Malam in Penang, the vendors also travel around to different location based on a set schedule.

I didn't really budgeted for much sit down dine in, so we just mainly walked around looking at the beautiful historical shops here. Above is the Beehive Inn. I love the way they named all the pubs and hotels and inn. It's so fantasy world to me! And their decoration was almost always equally whimsical. On my next trip, I hope to focus more on pubs and bookstore which I didn't really managed to do on my first trip here. I felt dining-in in Scotland was just so expensive. We have yet to dine at any restaurant except Oink since we arrived in Scotland. And with M&S so near our hotel, we didn't really need to. So most of our dining was outside of Edinburgh :P 

The White Hart Inn, so majestic in deco. I wander how much does it cost a night here? Would it really felt like an old inn? Ha, so after googling it, it's just a historical pub and no longer serve as an inn. But for your info, nightly accommodation nearby is around 164sgd to 344sgd here. In comparison, our place at Premium Inn Royal Mile cost us around 200sgd too, but at least we were near the train station. 

We saw this paella stall at the weekend market here, and I didn't managed to eat it because I hesitated whether to eat it. It cost around 12pounds for the seafood paella, but when I decided to go queue up and buy one, they told me they were sold out and closed for the day..... Luckily for me, we were going to visit another Sunday market in Stockbridge the next day, so hopefully I'll see them there as well. If I do, I will not hesitate again! I know that paella is actually Spanish, but I just love eating this, especially with sour cream and lemon wedges. I do cook this at home too, but I use a rice cooker, which doesn't have the charred aroma when cooked in a pan like this. I also skim on the sour cream and lemon wedges. If I feel rich I might add yogurt and calamansi :P

As night near, we started walking back towards the new town. The building anywhere in Edinburgh is as lovely.

We saw a few themed cafe and restaurant along the way too. Here is one on Wizard of Oz. At the time of our visit, Wicked was not released yet, so this was just a down to earth Oz Bar. I bet they have cash in since after the released of Wicked. If not, what a waste of oppurtunity!

There was also this Frankenstein Restaurant which I was interested in. It only opens at night, and the menu mainly consist of pizza and cocktails, so I decided that it was probably a cheesy place. They do have a coffin inside where the monster come to life periodically! lol. I don't know why, I love these cheesy things, but I won't spend my money on them, not unless they are really very money woof!

On our way back, we finally walked through the colourful street of Victory Street, or Diagon Alley for Harry Porter fans! There is a Harry Porter themed shop here, and I will tell you all about it in my next post!

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Greyfriars Kirk (2/2)

Guess what, there is a Part 2 of the Greyfiars Kirk. I tend to go overboard when visiting places of the dead. I find them romantically beautiful somehow. I plan to visit the Glasgow Necropolis next! I think my fascination started on my very first trip to Europe when I went down to the Catacombs of Paris. Since then, I've visited many places of the dead, from Churches decorated with bones in Italy, to the beautiful graveyards of Paris Pere Lachaise Cemetery, to Koyasan's Okunoin Cemetery and Mausoleum of Kyoto near Kiyumizudera....

Now I can add the Greyfiars Kirk into my list as well :) 

If anything, it' a beautiful walk inside. There are more tombstone here than another kirk we visited called the St Cutbert Kirk the next day. Although I must say, St Cuthbert Kirk has it's own charm as well. I also like it that you could just wander into graveyards here as part of your way to another location. It was just a path you could cut through to get some peace and quiet. Almost like a park!

I also like the decorative nature of western graveyard and their tomb stones. Granted the urns in a Chinese temple can also be interesting. I used to spend a lot of time looking at urns at my grandma's temple during prayer season too. But I kinda like the western ones better, mainly because I grew up with wester literature more than eastern ones. I mostly felt like a mixed bag of culture, yellow on the outside, but pretty white inside in terms of literature, philosophy and religion. As I aged, my inside has slowly changed to more eastern as I travel more to China and Japan.....

How would you not like decorative like a dancing skeleton on your tombstone? I know I would love having that! Too bad mine would be more of a cremation and throw into the sea type of ending. lol. I guess as a Buddhist I will leave nothing behind. Perhaps these pages will survive.... For how long, I don't know. 

Moss covered tombstone was another lovely sight for me. I also love moss covered temples (maybe for the dead) in Thailand and Cambodia. I think travel feeds my love for all these beautiful places on earth where I can't really experience in person from books or other media. You've got to be there in real life to experience the joy of seeing these in person!

There are also stone statues on some of the graves and mausoleum. I guess only the rich people have mausoleum as it must cost more to build it? I think I read that there are also caged cemetery, maybe for witches and evil people where you don't want them crawling back up no  matter what. I read there was a witch that was buried in sea with a stone grave.... Scotland, you are so fascinating to me!

Signing off with a skull photo here :) 

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Greyfriars Kirk (1/2)

After finishing our visit to the Edinburgh Castle, it was more or less free and easy time for us to wander around Edinburgh. I had a few places on my mind to wander to, and hopefully the next part of the day would be kinda like a Harry Porter themed day. It was around 4pm by the time we left the castle, so we went down the stairs again to the Grassmarket area, and went in search of the first location, Greyfriars Kirk, a cemetery that is famous for two things: Harry Porter, and Bobby Greyfriars the terrier dog. We somehow found the side door of the cemetery above and made ourselves in.

A more format sign of the cemetery with Edinburgh also on the sign, as well as Gaelic. 

There are also even more information on this sign!

Enough of signs, let us ventured in and see what it's like inside. As mentioned above, we actually entered via a side door, and so found ourselves directly at the graveyard area. I have no idea how big the place was, or the orientation of the place. I guess that is what wandering meant? I knew that I love graveyard, and that I wanted to see Bobby, and maybe do some Harry Porter name spotting among the tombstones. 

What I can say about cemetery in the west is, they always looked so beautiful and peaceful to me. I can't really say the same for Chinese cemetery, or Japanese ones although I have visited Japanese graves and mausoleum before. Here, the graveyard just look like a very serene garden to me.

 

We did eventually found our way to the main church, a yellow structure inside the cemetery. We didn't venture inside the building though. For some reason, I didn't go into many churches in Scotland apart from St Gile's. Perhaps I should have?

The statue of Bobby was just in front of the church, and there were many informative signs about Bobby as seen here. Interestingly, I never knew terrier dogs were originally from Scotland. My friend has two as her pets and I've spent some amount of time with them recently and am surprised how friendly they are. I'm not much of a dog lover, but I think I've warmed up to them more recently simple by the fact that my friend kept bringing me on walks with them. No, not often, maybe just once or twice a year. But they are so friendly, and better behave than most of the dogs I've met before. 

Even before reaching the church, you could see the statue of Bobby and all the flowers that surrounds it. That dogs has more flowers and than all the grave in the graveyards combined! 

Bobby is actually buried here. He died in 1872 on the same day as my birthday! Famous for being loyal and guarding his master's grave for 14 years until his death! Wow! Should I get a dog, or cat when I am older and living alone?

Lovely flowers surrounding Bobby's grave and statue. That's not the only statue of Bobby. Just outside the cemetery, there is also another statue of him right on the road. There is also a pub named after him. 

After visiting Bobby, we went back to our wandering of the graveyard. Trying to hunt down names of the characters in Harry Porter proves too difficult as most of the tombstones has very old carving of the names that were hard to make out. There was also so many tombstones here to scan through! If you are really interesting in seeing the names, do your research before hand, or join a Harry Porter tour where they will lead you to the location of the graves. But if you're looking for a Harry Porter school inspired looking building, above was what you would be looking for. It's not inside the cemetery, but an actual functioning school just adjacent to it.

There is a metal gate separating the school from the cemetery, and signs asking you not to take photography of it as there are students inside. There was a Harry Porter tour group outside while we were walking pass.

The building looked absolutely gorgeous from afar. Almost islamic in architecture with it's beautiful domes. The trees and the tombstones here really add to teh charms of the area.

Here is another shot of the lovely school.

Above is the gate of the school from the cemetery with the tour group on the left. I felt almost envious that students here have such beautiful school grounds to go to. It felt like it was so full of history and culture of it's own. That's coming from me who attended a school that is more than 100 years old in Penang, Malaysia. But my school doesn't look as impressive as this one. It looked just like a typical school, functional and boring.....

One of the highlight of this kirk was also that Bloody MacKenzie mausoleum is also found here. It was hard to miss as it has it's own doors guarding it. It is known as the most haunted spot of the graveyard, effectively also making this cemetery one of the most haunted in Scotland!

You could peep in to see what is inside. Fun fact, you can't see anything inside cause it's too dark. It's just blackness. I know, cause I looked. I am a person who has many fears, but apparently fear of the dead is not one of them.... against my own better judgement, I did peep inside, as did many visitors. But if you search the web, you will find many haunting activities about this place, especially when joining ghost tours at night :)

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Castle Great Hall

Ah, the Great Hall. I did wonder what they meant by that, and what I will see. It was quite a small hall, probably took less than 30 mins to walk through it. Here are more details of it in the official info above.

I don't recall queueing to go into the Great Hall, probably cause it was almost late afternoon now and most crowd have already left. The light was obviously green as seen here in the photo. We just leisurely walked in to explore.

Inside, it was red in colour, and decorated with wooden design and chandelier. Perhaps this was were royal banquet was held? Balls? Meeting the royals? Above was actually all the space of the Great Hall. 

At one end, was a collection of armours. That was pretty cool. 

At a different wall, there were displayed of weapons, mainly sword. Now that I recall, those sword design were similar to those I saw on the Outlander series. I guess they do kinda followed the historical aspect when filming that show. I should try my best to watch as much as possible before my next trip so that I may appreciate more of the Highland culture and history.

Stained glass windows, with different badges displayed on the window design. Rich red cushions for you to sit on while looking out the window.... I love the reflection of the stained glass design on the floor. I wish people would incorporate more stained glass into modern buildings, especially as windows or doors. They are themselves a work of art.

There were more than one stained glass window. At first I thought their design was all the same. But when I compared the photos, they are all different. Imagine the detailed going into making them. What fine workmanship. A thing of beauty that lasted through all those years..... 

I thought this next display was very interesting. Not many people linger to see what it was. It was basically a key, maybe to the Great Hall. And it was, I guess, ceremonial, for every tag was a name of someone who was here, and the details of their visit. I thought it was such a nice touch to have this collection, honouring all those who have visited. It was a shamed that many just walked pass these without knowing what they were!

Me at the banquet at the Great Hall! Hahahaha. Fun fact, I have dined inside an Istana before (royal house in Malaysia). It was when I was in high school, and participating in the national states chess competition. If not mistaken, we were invited to dinner to the Istana of Perak as their guest :) 

Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Castle Upper Ground

 

Yay, managed to put another sign post photo up! This time, about the places in the upper grounds of the Edinburgh Castle. After witnessing the 1pm gun ceremony, we were now free to wander upwards to the main key areas of the castle! Excited. Actually, the previous post on St Margaret's Chapel was already at the upper grounds of the castle.... 

As the ground at the top is kinda smaller than the one at the lower level, the photos above shows that there seems to be a crowd there. It does felt a bit crowded, especially at the Crown Jewel's building, but it was still manageable. 

This was one of the grander and nicer building at the top. It looked old and with splendid windows. I think this was the war memorial if not mistaken. I thought it was a church of some sort when I first laid eyes on it. I actually that this was the St Margaret's Chapel, expecting something grand for the oldest building here.... I was humbled by it. 

The sky was just beautiful that day. This was early afternoon, perhaps 2pm? And yes, as confirmed by the sign here, it was the National War Memorial. There was a no photograph taking policy inside the memorial, probably due to respect the fallen inside. It was lovely inside, small and narrow, but with much tribute given to all the names found inside. I only went in briefly, but I knew there were people who were inside combing the names to find their loved ones or ancestors. 

The outside of the building was also decorated with small details. Like this statue in the wall here that kinda looked like a window. It does made it look like a church, doesn't it?

The war memorials is more for modern wars. If you're wanting to see memorial for the Highland wars, Culloden Battlefield would be the place to go as those are dated way back in time. I guess I will be headed there in April 2026. I've been continuing my watch on the Highlander Series, a series I started watching after I came back from my first trip to Scotland. I just finished Season 1, and their latest Season 8 was launched recently...... I doubt I can finish everything before my next trip. But the more I watched, the more I realised that maybe I might want to visit the battlefields after all, if only to see the memorial of the clans. I hope those are  in the free to access area. 

Above, the small entrance into the war memorial. I think it's a lovely building. But when you enter, it's just halls and halls of names of the fallen.....So much war in Europe....

Little touch on the building, mini golden flags at the top of the building.

The next crowded place was the entrance to the Crown Jewels. There was also the Great Wall which you could wander into. I'll show that in the next few post or so. But here you could see to even enter the Crown Jewel building, you had to queue. It was mainly cause it was narrow to go inside, kinda reminded me of those old castle in Balkans with their narrow steps and corridors designed mainly to make it easier to protect when invaded. 

The clock tower outside looked like something out of my story book. Very British-European. 

And there were signs too, symbols on top of entrances. I don't really know what they meant, but they do look cool! Kinda like a protection spell at the entrance. 

Here is the official sign outside. 

And some of the more official information. Again, no photograph allowed inside. Heck, I can't even remember what it looked like. But I guess a photo of it exist surely in the internet if you google it. :P

I also saw these on the walls of the building. After returning from Balkan, I'm wondering, is this a grave? Cause during my trip to Balkan, visiting some of the castles and old town, the tour guide actually showed us some of the graves just like this one lining some of the stone corridors of the old town and buildings. Usually it was of someone important. 

I don't know why I have this knight appearing again. I could have run around exploring and ended up at the gates again before I went back up to queue up for entering the other more popular attraction. Knights are always cool. Maybe it's also a grave with the knight stuck inside? Kinda like Han Solo.....

Different view of Scotland from different area of the castle :) View is one thing you will get plenty of as I explore Scotland. Wait till we reached my Highland post! So many many views of the Highlands......