A Very Full Day in Scotland

The remains of Hadrian's Wall near Cawfield's Quarry
Haltwhistle, England

After breakfasting with some Polish athletes we left Newcastle. I think they were soccer players, but they were all so tall and skinny they could easily have been basketball playing gymnasts. We walked off our breakfast while visiting Hadrian’s Wall at Cawfield's Quarry; remnants from the Roman Empire. When new, the wall was 16-20 feet high, but now it’s only chest height. The stones were pilfered after the fall of Rome, but they were reused in the fencing and houses of the locals.

Milecastle 42 at Hadrian's Wall
Haltwhistle, England

The wall was very precise; every mile was a milecastle gate, and every seven miles was a fort, regardless of natural topography. The part we visited skirted the edge of steep incline, but Milecastle 42 was there. The wall functioned as the northern-most boundary of Rome, and there are conflicting accounts as to why the Romans didn’t press further into Scotland. One account claims the Scots were ferocious fighters who held the Romans off; the other maintains that the Romans looked at the sparse, rocky land and said “keep it”. It should be obvious which account the Scots prefer. We paced the wall for a bit, playing centurion, and then we pressed deeper into Scotland.

In April my sister and I rode the train from King’s Cross station in London to Edinburgh in Scotland, and it passed close to the Scottish coast line; we followed a similar route when we drove north.  I love the landscape of Scotland; it feels so open and grandiose. The drive was beautiful, but it was a bit time consuming, and we arrived late for our whisky tour in Edinburgh.

Part of the world's largest collection of Scotch Whisky
at the Scotch Whisky Experience, Edinburgh, Scotland

Luckily tours run all day and we were able to join a later tour. The only apparent downside: we had to share our tour with a stag party. However, it was still early in their night and they weren’t rowdy. The tour started out with a barrel ride where a ghost detailed the instructions for brewing decent whisky. Most interestingly, the size and shape of the still can change the taste of the whisky. There are a few tour options at the Scotch Whiskey Experience; my dad chose Gold but the rest of us selected Silver. Gold tours come with 4 bonus drams in addition to the 1 dram everyone in the Silver tour receives.

Wandering the Beautiful Royal Mile
Edinburgh, Scotland

There are 5 flavor profiles of whisky in Scotland, but Campbeltown Malt is rare and wasn’t really discussed during our tasting. Of the 100 or so brewers in Scotland, only 3 produce the Campbeltown Malt, and rarely is it exported. Since there were 4 remaining flavor profiles, and 4 of us on the tour, we each selected a different style. I do think my Dad and I ended up drinking most of all 4 though. After the guided tasting, we were led into a room with wonderful views of the Royal Mile and Holyrood Park, where my sister and I hiked last time. Here Dad received his additional 4 drams; one of each style. We asked for some dark chocolate, and he and I proceeded to share the drams; cheeks growing steadily redder. Mom and Joe ordered beers, but they didn’t like the one that tasted like caramel popcorn. I found that caramel popcorn beer was a great chaser for the smoky Speyside whisky. Then, in case we hadn’t consumed enough, we went to Whiski for dinner. As before, it was delicious.

Poor guy. He did not see this coming!
South Bridge Vaults, Edinburgh, Scotland

When we finished dinner we wandered the Royal Mile a bit before meeting the Mercat Cross for our Ghostly Underground Tour; the same tour my sister and I were on in April. This time though, our tour was in the final time slot for the evening; no one would be entering the vaults after us. It was still damp, dark, and eerie, but we didn’t feel anything supernatural. We did take some pictures this time, and Joe managed to accidentally blind a guy with the flash; it was so dark we couldn’t see him until it was too late.

That night we stayed in the Edinburgh Hilton which was a labyrinth of passages and stairways. It felt a little like Hogwarts; I kept waiting for the staircases to move. The bed was giant and old, and it’s creaking was a little scary after the ghost tour, but we managed to sleep well. The weird thing is, the rooms on their website look nothing like the historic room in which we stayed.

Useful Links!
Pictures from our Trip!
Hadrian’s Wall an English Heritage Site
Hadrian's Wall near Cawfield's Quarry
The Scotch Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh, Scotland
Learn more about Whisky from the Scotch Whisky Association
Edinburgh Tourist Information Site
Holyrood Park from Historic Scotland
Whiski Bar and Restaurant: Whisky on the Menu and in the Fare
Ghostly Underground Tour from Mercat Tours
Book a Room at the Edinburgh Hilton

Read about my previous Adventures in Holyrood Park with my Sister
Read about my first encounter with Whisky

Read about our first ghost tour!

My Name is Zack Bagans . . . and these are Our Ghost Adventures

When Joe and I first started dating, we would stay up late and watch Ghost Adventures, a show that used to scare the bejeezus out of us. In one episode, the team went to investigate the Edinburgh South Bridge Vaults, and it was a very active episode. Loving a good, terrifying thrill, I booked tickets for my sister and me to tour the underground chambers.

Tours are run by Mercat Tours, and there are 2 tour options for visiting the vaults, historic or ghost; we chose ghost. The historic tour is during the day and utilizes electric lighting. The ghost tours are at night and the vaults are lit only with candlelight. This was a simple way to set the mood without the use of costumes; when the vaults were in use, the only light source would have been candles. Candlelight is pretty inadequate; living or working in the cave-like vaults would have been depressing.

When Edinburgh’s population became far too large for the city limits, the city built a bridge to extend outward, the South Bridge. The area under the bridge was built into useable space by constructing various chambers underneath. These were connected by passageways, and for a while, they were used by respectable business owners. When the bridge was built though, the builders cut a corner and didn’t waterproof the vaults. Water and other nastiness seeped in from the streets above, and the legitimate businesses fled. In their wake, dozens of illegal uses for the vaults sprang up.

The vaults were filled in the 1860s and then rediscovered in the 1980s. When people began revisiting the vaults, they noticed spiritual activity. Most of the spirits in the vaults seem to stem from its nefarious past. There are rumors that the Hellfire Club met in the vaults; that some pagans accidentally opened a portal to hell; that body-snatchers used vaults to store corpses. Some of the rumors are true, but fact or fiction, spirits remain in the vaults.

We visited a room where a child named Jack frequents, and my sister said, after visiting that room she just didn’t feel right, and begged to leave as soon as possible. We stayed long enough for me purchase some books (mmmmmmmmm books). We also talked briefly with our guide to see if we were in the evil, haunted hotel. While its exact location is a mystery, we at least weren’t staying in the same neighborhood.

I didn’t feel much, just temperature changes, but it was hard to focus on any errant sounds or smells in a large group. Furthermore, there were other tours taking place, so distant sounds could be attributed to them. I would love a more private tour of the vaults, one in which I might notice more of the supernatural.

Useful Links!

Mercat Tours

Edinburgh South Bridge Vaults

Ghost Adventures

Rumors of Spiritual Activity in the Vaults

Hellfire Club on Wikipedia

Mary King’s Close

Our first night in Edinburgh, we toured the underground remains of Mary King’s Close. A close is, quite simply, a narrow alley: in some places only shoulder width apart. There are many closes that are still at street level in Edinburgh, but Mary King’s is under the city chambers.

The close and the rooms/apartments off the close are remarkably intact. They are like caves, with only an entrance in the front, and no windows. It was very depressing to think of the people packed into the small rooms about the size of a bathroom. Edinburgh was very over crowded in the 17^th century, and the city built both up and down since out was not an option due to geographical constraints. Some buildings in the closes were 14 stories high, with many more layers below ground, dug into the soft stone. Due to this overcrowding, the area was very susceptible to disease, and in 1645 the plague swept through, eliminating roughly 50% of the population.

Since so many of the former inhabitants living on Mary King’s close had died, the neighborhood gained a reputation for being cursed or haunted, and people refused to live there. There were even rumors that the victims of the plague had been boarded up inside the close and left for dead. This wasn’t true; they were cared for by plague doctors, but most died anyway. By the mid-1700s, the neighborhood had become rundown and derelict; the government did in fact brick it up and use it as construction material. They built the present city chambers over top of the existing close, much like the necropolis under St. Peter’s basilica.

Underground, the temperature is pretty constant, and it was warmer than outside. It was damp and filled with stale air, the kind that gave way to irrational worries about catching century old diseases. The walls were stone, and because of the dim lighting, the whole place looked as though it were under a sepia filter.

The only way to access the close is with the tour company, and it was completely opposite of the Jack the Ripper tour. Our guide was a ghost; the shadow of a fictional man who lived on the close during its heyday. He had a lantern and was costumed, and there were various gimmicks throughout the tour designed to startle you. The tour did contain a lot of history and the guide knew what he was talking about, but I think the whole tour would have been better if it were more straightforward. 

Useful Links!
Mary King’s Close Tour
Mary King's Close at Wikipedia