FairieMoon

The Berkshires...

We spent the last few days having an adventure in the Berkshires. Even in the rain they are absolutely lovely. I love to drive through them and visit the little towns nestled quietly in their bosom.

There are all kinds of strange and wonderful things to see and find.

We stayed at the Jiminy Peak Ski Resort.

They have summer fun to offer -- zip lines, slides, pools, trampolines -- but after the long, hot, dry summer we've had, the rain and fog drove some people away and we enjoyed a very quiet stay at the resort.

The rain did not stop all of us.

 

 

 

Despite the lack of people, the resort planted lovely gardens full of flowers and had music piped into the common areas during the day.

Although the resort was not heavily peopled, there was not a complete lack of activity.

There were signs of industry everywhere.

Besides there was something poetic about the still, almost abandoned ski lifts.

 

 

More flowers...

 

 

Edinburgh Castle...

Here we are on our final stop in Edinburgh. Are you ready? I am not sure I am ever fully ready to leave such a beautiful place and wonderful people.

Here are a few shots of the castle from Princes Street.

 

I will admit that it is kind of the hind end.

In actuality, we visited the Royal Mile, Greyfriar's Churchyard, Mary King's Close and the Castle all in one day. Greyfriar's Churchyard is located down the hill from the Royal Mile on a side street, so it was a little hike to get there and back, but there were fun things to see on the way.

 

Here is a shot of the Public Library. I liked the quote above the door.

Indeed! Let there be Light!

And now, are you ready? Our two final vacation photos!

Here we are at the castle.

We did not have time to go inside and take a tour of the collection of artifacts they have available for viewing. We figured we needed to save something for our next trip. We did only have three days afterall.

I think we did rather well myself.

It did feel terribly medieval though. I kind of wished I was dressed in appropriate period clothing.

And there we have it. From here we made the grueling trip home, up at 4am to fly from Edinburgh to Luton Airport, then we took a train back to King's Cross/St. Pancras. From there we caught the Tube to Heathrow and flew home to NYC. Once we reached JFK, we had to catch a transporter to our car, and then drive back to the Capital District, 3 hours away. By the time we got home, we were knackered.

Thank you so much for tuning in to my travelblog and for your patience in seeing it through to the end of the story.

Now we can return to more current events.

 

To find out what is happening in the dollhouse, please visit Adventures at Weathertop.

Greyfriars Bobby...

No trip to Edinburgh is complete without a trip to see the Greyfriar's Bobby.

 

The story goes...and this is taken from the traditionalist's view published on Wikipedia:

Bobby belonged to John Gray, who worked for the Edinburgh City Police as a night watchman, and the two were inseparable for approximately two years.^[1] On 8 February 1858, Gray died of tuberculosis. He was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the graveyard surrounding Greyfriars Kirk in the Old Town of Edinburgh. Bobby, who survived Gray by fourteen years, is said to have spent the rest of his life sitting on his master's grave. Another account^{[citation needed]} has it that he spent a great deal of time at Gray's grave, but that he left regularly for meals at a restaurant beside the graveyard, and may have spent colder winters in nearby houses.

In 1867, when it was argued that a dog without an owner should be destroyed, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Sir William Chambers—who was also a director of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—paid for Bobby's license, making him the responsibility of the city council.

Bobby died in 1872 and could not be buried within the cemetery itself, since it was and remains consecrated ground. He was buried instead just inside the gate of Greyfriars Kirkyard, not far from John Gray's grave.

A movie was made of the story.

Mr. MacGyver was very much taken with the story of the Greyfriar's Bobby when he was a little boy. When his parents were talking of sending him to boarding school, he claims he insisted on going to Fettes College because the boys at Fettes had taken food to the Greyfriar's Bobby sitting on his master's grave in the cemetery.

Nevertheless, we always visit the Bobby when we are there, and no trip to the Bobby is the same without a stop in the churchyard.

 

This is the fourth and final cemetery we visited on our trip...I promise. And this visit was pretty short and sweet.

 

I thought this guy was rather creepy with the skulls on the pillars next to him, his missing nose and his leering grin.

And that is it for the Greyfriar's Churchyard.

Up next is the final installment of our trip to Europe. You are probably well ready to be done looking at these photos. It was a wonderful trip with fabulous memories that I've enjoyed rehashing with you. I wish I could do it all again and subject you to even MORE photos.

Until next time...

 

 

Mary King's Close...

Some time ago, Mr. MacGyver and I watched a documentary about the city of Edinburgh. In it they talked about how there are layers of city streets below the modern street level. You can read a little bit about it here. In the past, instead of the city sprawling out like the city of Los Angeles, the city spread up. Buildings got taller and eventually the streets at the bottom were covered to make a new street level. However, closed in though the original streets and accommodations were, people still lived in them.

Oh there are lovely, macabre stories about the things that went on in the closes, some true, some not so true. Stories of body snatchings, hauntings and people getting sealed inside.

Of course this made the closes a must-see stop on our trip. The thing is, there are closes all up and down the royal mile at street level which give you an idea what the original closes might have been like. You can look at them and imagine them getting covered over completely. But there are also tours you can take, leading you down into the bowels of the closes.

All of my photos are of the closes topside. Though we went on a tour of Mary King's Close, we were not allowed to take photos while down in the close...it was also very, very dark, not at all conducive to no flash photography.

Most of the closes at street level look like this, or contain steep stairwells that lead to another part of Old Town.

Others look like this, leading out into a courtyard in which you might find restaurants, living spaces or businesses.

Here is one of the steep stairwell variety.

 

Needless to say, the closes captured my imagination, little dark hallways with the promise of light at the end. Each one of them seemed to hold a secret that was waiting to be discovered. I wanted to dip into each and every one of them, and people do. They use them to navigate the city on foot.

Here we are, about to descend into Mary King's Close for a tour.

Her close is famous because, at one time it was said to be haunted. It didn't feel particularly haunted to me...it felt pretty touristy. On the other hand, it was a nice example of the conditions in which people lived and worked as late as the 19th century.

To describe it...people lived in mere vaulted caves, no air, no natural light, no windows, and they lived there with their animals, often five or more people and animals per vault. Because there was no plumbing and the closes were built on a hill leading down to the river, they would throw their waste out into the street, yelling "Gardy-loo" as they threw it, and it would wash down into the river. Imagine the smell. Yuck. Imagine the disease. Want to go swimming?

If you go to Edinburgh, you too could take the Mary King's Close Tour (it no longer smells of excrement), but if you are looking for something more spooky, there are other tours available...those are the ones I am going for next time I visit.

Next Up: Greyfriars Churchyard and Cemetery.

 

If you'd like to find out what is happening in the dollhouse, please visit Adventures at Weathertop.