DAY THIRTEEN: The Royal Mile

I’m going to keep this short because we over planned today and I’ve got about 15 minutes to get this done. Today we went into the belly of the beast: the Royal Mile. To anyone unfamiliar with the Royal Mile, it’s the mile (2.2 KM) between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace (where the Queen stays when she’s in Edinburgh), the beating heart of Old Edinburgh, OG Edinburgh, which dates back to the 16th century. Per yesterday’s driver Robbie and the woman on the corner here holding up flyers, there’s an even older Edinburgh located directly beneath the Royal Mile, and you can tour it, but that’s not in the cards for us because A) we are over planned and B) Seattle-bred Sandra Bullock, who usually refers to the excellent Seattle Underground tour as “Seattle’s basement,” scoffed before I could even introduce the idea of an old-old Edinburgh tour.  

All of the guidebooks, from Rick Steves to Fodor’s to the budget-minded Lonely Planet (shoutout Lonely Planet, my bible when I was in alone with three earrings and a Jose Canseco mullet in Australia in 1987), tell you that the Royal Mile is a must-see. It’s a given.  Water is wet, Joe Jackson was a bad father and when in Edinburgh you must see the Royal Mile.

Here’s the one thing the guidebooks leave out:  The Royal Mile is plaid Fisherman’s Wharf.

Granted, I might be sensitive to Fisherman’s Wharves (Fishermen’s Wharf?).  As a 20-year resident of the World’s Favorite City (but not mine) (TM), I’ve developed a sixth sense for impending Fisherman’s Wharves, a Spidey Sense for that which is all but undetectable to civilian travelers.  Siena’s Piazza del Campo? Tuscan Fisherman’s Wharf. Key West? Jimmy Buffet Fisherman’s Wharf. Bourbon Street? Drunk Fisherman’s Wharf. 

If you love crowds, this is your place.

Look; if you’re looking to immerse yourself in actual local customs and mores, stay away from these places. If you’re looking for quick signifiers that tell you where you are, have at it. Also, if you love crowds, which, in very imitable “get off my lawn, you kids!” -style, I don’t. Six years ago, during our first sabbatical (“From what?” Haha.), I decided, while dodging tour groups in the shadow of Rome’s Coliseum, that if I’ve heard of something, I probably don’t want to go there, because everyone else has heard of it too.  Shout out Kingman, Arizona as a vacation spot.

However, if you’re a diaspora clan member visiting Edinburgh and you’re looking for some memorabilia, the Royal Mile has got your number.

Lets say you’re a member of the clan Moffat — official or otherwise, we haven’t yet determined if you need to take a test, produce some official papers or just point to the website where it shows you as the 8th descendent of a nobleman from this region — and you wish to fill your larder with scarves, pins, medallions, etc.  You could actually go to Moffat and sift through the small town’s single, inadequate memorabilia store, but you’ll come away disappointed, clutching maybe a small guide book that loosely outlines the history of your clan — THE ONE THE TOWN IS NAMED AFTER — but that’s it.  If you really want to dig into souvenir land, follow the crowds to Old Edinburgh, set up camp on the Royal Mile and give yourself two hours to pop into every shop.  You’ll come away with a gold mine.

That was the plan today, hatched by our own Sandra Bullock (Jr.) when we all realized there were not enough hours in the day to complete our original plan, which was to visit the Stockbridge Farmer’s Market, do a self-guided tour of Holyrood Palace, walk the Royal Mile and wrap it up with our 2 PM guided tour of Edinburgh Castle (sad postscript: even with our maneuvering, we ended up arriving at Holyrood at 4:34 PM, four minutes after Magdalena put up the rope ending all tours for the day.  “You really need two hours,” she explained.  One hour and 26 minutes clearly would not be sufficient.).  That we lounged around our luxurious AirBnB digs until 10 AM further complicated matters.  “What if we do the castle tour and THEN, if we have time, Holyrood?” Bullock suggested at 9:43.  “That’ll give us time to explore the Royal Mile.”  She didn’t mean “explore” in a Lewis and Clark sort of way.  More like “shopping.”

Which was fine.  Sandra Bullock is known for her ability to adjust on the fly, to prioritize and to make firm decisions, so having decided that Holyrood was a value add instead of a must-have, we arrived at the Royal Mile at noon, with plenty of time to wander around with 4 million of our closest friends and search for and acquire every single artifact emblazoned with the Maffat tartan and/or crest up to and including the Holy Grail of all tchotchkes, the Moffat clan crest bottle opener.

So there’s that, of course, and plenty of time, if we wished (we did not), to have our picture taken next to an indifferent bagpiper.  Stationed every block or so, these fully-kitted men puffed away on their pipes with dignity as all manner of tourist stood by their side and made cheeky faces while their spouses, friends and parents snapped away, oblivious to the clear fact that each piper wanted nothing more than a quick escape, a beer and a comfortable pair of gym shorts, in that order.  Maybe switch into the shorts before cracking the beer.  

Malt Disneyland

There’s also the Scottish Whiskey Experience, located adjacent to the entrance to the castle, derided by the boys back at Whiski Rooms as “Malt Disneyland,” plus visitors from around the globe, wide-eyed and ready to soak up maximum surface Scottish culture in as little time as possible.  I can verify the “around the globe” part because I heard all sorts of language while standing outside while the Sandra Bullocks disappeared into each plaid store, searching for some Moffat item they’d overlooked. Also tweed, since Jr. decided about an hour in that she “wanted something tweed.”

Update: authentic “something tweed” comes from the Highlands, where we will be late next week.  Since I have zero interest in joining my middle-aged American male cohort in buying a tweed newsboy cap and then jamming it on my head while I walk around the Royal Mile, we will not be purchasing “something tweed” today. 

I’m allergic to tourist meccas; we’ve already established that.  But I love a good history lesson, and as I stood outside the plaid stores scanning the madness of the crowds, the jugglers, the tour groups, I could see that we were, indeed, standing among some legit history.  The oldest building in Old Scotland (the visible part, not the underground part) was built in 1569. Two hundred years later, the oldest building in San Francisco, Mission Dolores, was built.  Somewhere, hidden under mounds of tourist-trap souvenirs and faux authentic pubs, is a serious historic site.  If you squint (and arm yourself with a good guide book), you can imagine how it must’ve been back then, all of the unrest, all of the body odor.  It’s fascinating, even if it’s obscured like the Singing Potter’s tragic life story, buried under a mountain of nonsense.  The story is still there.

So I’m certainly not complaining, especially when I got such a kick out of watching the Sandra Bullocks dart in and out of their plaid stores, taken special care to make sure Sr. doesn’t suffer another almost-spill  (twice(!) she almost went down on the cobblestones, stopped first by her son-in-law’s sturdy left arm and then by her daughter, who took the opportunity to point out that quilting shoes aren’t the best shoes “for walking around.”), their shared joy in finding Moffat treasures.  Also, Jr. looks fantastic today.

It’s also given me the chance to complete this entry.  I lied to you before.  I’m not writing this in the 15 minutes I anticipate us having between the Holyrood tour and the Uber that will whisk us off to tonight’s Michelin Star vegetarian restaurant.  I’m writing on my iPhone on the sly, Bud Smith-style again, adding a paragraph or two in moments stolen as the Bullocks shop, the parade moves slowly past and I huddle in doorways, wondering why I picked this windy day, of all days, to wear shorts. 

How about some numbers?

4,000,000 - tourists, representing all the countries 

2 - near falls by my mother-in-law, who’s going to try her running shoes tomorrow. 

0 - pipers painted silver or pretending to be a bush, then leaping out and scaring tourists, which is what they’d be doing if they were at actual Fisherman’s Wharf. 

43 - middle-aged American guys wearing brand-new tweed newsboy caps. 

1 - very small woman glaring at my wife because she knocked a t-shirt off of a rack.  What’s your problem, lady?

5 - display windows promoting Loch Ness Monster t-shirts designed to look like they’re from the Jurassic Park movie series. 

2 - plot recaps, since yesterday, of the movie Braveheart pointing out all of the historical inaccuracies 

103 - other people’s Edinburgh vacation pictures I inadvertently appeared in. 

Real Time Update:  The castle tour, while disorganized, gave us a comprehensive history of the seemingly endless series of battles, defeats and conquests that comprise Scottish history.  Hats off to Markus, our guide, earning some summer cash and honing his public speaking skills while completing his PhD. and big ups to the Italian guy in the scarf, who seemed to enjoy everything.  Remember, I’m just a passenger on this thing called life.  Even given that, I’ve got to wonder who decided that everyone traveling the world’s biggest wish is to see the same juggling show everywhere they go.