Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Edinburgh Castle Lower Ground

 

I can't recall what time was our entry ticket. I think it was probably 930am or 10am as I wanted to visit the Weekend Market at Castle Terrace first. But the guards were nice enough to let us in 15minutes before our allocated time. So after hanging outside the castle square for a while, we made ourselves in to the Edinburgh Castle. It was exciting since we've already visited the outside a few times before actually going inside!

Here is a picture of me walking in. I love that the gates into the castle has two knights's statues outside guarding it. For some reason, Scotland was so much more castle than England. I've only been to the London Tower I think, and that wasn't very castle-ry either. 

But Edinburgh Castle felt proper castle to me. The way it was seated on top of a rock, and the way it was built with a single entry in that looked so majestic. It felt proper castle cause it looked like it was built to protect. And almost every where inside, were little signs like those above, carrying some message, or blessings and protection for battle or national pride. 

A side profile of the knight statue. I do like knights. Not those in shinning armour though, just more like Knight Templars, or Order of the Thistle, or something in that form. Not as a single knight that rescue the princess type, but those underground society type :P

There are signs inside on all the main attraction sights like this one above. I never did like audio tour cause I can't focus on the audio while looking around. But at least with these, I can read as I walk around. I also hate those info QR code where instead of telling you stuff, they make you scan QR codes to read more detailed about the stuff. Dude! Not everyone has unlimited data! And even if you provide free Wifi, not everyone has unlimited battery life! 

As any respectable castle goes, even for a fort, there are canons inside. I like this one that says Argyle Battery. I learnt a lot about Scotland in one single trip. I learnt that a lot of the names in Scotland can also be found in the streets of Penang! Noted that Penang used to be a port belonging to the British. Many names in Scotland reminded me of places in Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong cause they were all Commonwealth Countries.

And here is what the canon was looking out to. See, it's so protect castle! You could bomb anything from miles away. Great for seeing your enemy approaching. Actually, from the location of the castle you could probably see the whole of Edinburgh since the castle sits on a rock overlooking all the flat land below. 

There were locations in the castle you could walk into that has exhibition materials for you to read up on. Information mainly on the castle and perhaps wars it had fought on. The The display at these places were kinda minimal, but there were a few museums inside where it was filled with detailed information and lots of interesting artefacts. 

Timeline and viewing location information could also be found. 

And then there are the museums. A single ticket into the castle actually gave you access to plenty of museums inside. Initially I thought I could spend just maybe 2 hours tops inside the castle since many review said it was a small castle. In total, we spent perhaps 4 to 6 hours inside. I think we didn't leave till maybe 2pm or later. I thought I could see everything then watch the 1pm gun salute and leave. But we were only still exploring the lower ground before the time came for the gun salute. After which we spend more time exploring the upper ground of the castle.

Here is me, outside the museum. I think it was the Scotland War Museum. Will have more info about the inside in upcoming post!