Honestly, I don't remember how long does it take to get to the city center from the airport. :p
By tram, we stopped at Haymarket station and then we proceed walking to those attractions that I will share here. Buildings in Edinburgh look familiar if you have been to London, well they are together as Great Britain and United Kingdom, right?
It was a gloomy day and slightly raining. My friend told me that they cannot rely on weather forecast here. It can be raining everyday. :p The roads are similar to Malaysia, they also drive on the left side of the road with right-hand-side of cars. Most former British colonies are like this - Malaysia, India, Pakistan. This includes Australia and Japan as well.
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| Brown gold buildings everywhere. |
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| British style. |
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| Errr, I am not sure what is this. |
We walked in the direction of Edinburgh Castle and these were places we passed through. The first one was Princes Street Gardens. I've been told that Princes Street is the area where you can go shopping like the Oxford Street in London. I don't fancy shopping much so I skipped this one.
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| Look at the lovely green garden! |
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| That's the castle I think. |
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| This was just beside the bus stop. |
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| Cuci mata naaa :D |
On the way, we found The Ross Fountain, with the castle as the background. From the signboard there, the fountain was actually made in France over 150 years ago! And the sculptor responsible for this fountain was the one who made the Louvre in Paris.
How it finally brought to Edinburgh? There was a guy, named Daniel Ross who bought the fountain and gave it to Edinburgh in 1872.
Wowww, senangnya bagi hadiah kat bandar. :)
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| Constructed from 122 individual sections. |
The castle is located on top of the hill. So, expect some walking-hiking yea.
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| The castle, from bottom. |
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| The final stairs before you can stand in front of the gate of Edinburgh Castle. |
Yeah, finally!
Edinburgh Castle. There was a big square (Esplanade) in front of the castle with some constructions that we need to walk through. They were building lots of seats (just like the seats in the stadium) here.
So many people there and yeah, Asians everywhere. Haha
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| Why so excited? Errrr. |
We didn't buy any tickets so we just enjoyed the areas that were free to access. Similar to Prague Castle I guess where there is free area but you need to pay to see more areas in the castle.
There are many facts that make this place more stunning. Like, the castle was built on top of Castle Rock which is a hundred million years extinct volcano. It was also lived by many noble people like other castles that I've been to. Oh yea, I told you they were building many seats in front of the castle, now I understand why. There are a lot of performances being done there, so the seats are for the audiences.
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| Walking inside. |
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| I tried this, nice one! |
After buying few postcards, we continued to Calton Hill. The views along the way, as expected to be spectacular. We passed through a road called Ramsay Garden and the houses there were so beautiful! Look at this!
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| Ramsay Garden. |
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| We could see Scottish National Gallery on our way. |
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| Walk, walk, walk. |
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| General Assembly Hall - this is a part church, I think. I was just amazed with the age of the building. 1846 kot. Old enough but standing strong! |
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| Somewhere on our way. |
Finally, after about 30 minutes walk, we arrived at Calton Hill. There is another interesting viewpoint on the other hill - Arthur's Seat but we did not have that much time to go there as well. Basically from what I've read, Calton Hill and Arthur's Seat were formed by volcanic activity similar to Castle Rock. And Calton Hill is one of the first public parks in Britain!
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| Yeay. |
There are a lot of monuments in this hill. You can enter each of them if you want or simply watch from outside. The one below is Nelson Monument, built in early 1800 to commemorate a hero of some war, I just don't know...
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| Nelson Monument. |
Meanwhile, this one below is National Monument of Scotland - a memorial to Scottish sailors and soldiers who died in Napoleonic Wars. I am not sure if I learned anything about these wars before but I'm pretty sure Ottoman Empire kinda related to them as well. Napoleonic Wars were about French revolution that lead to the ending of Holy Roman Empire.
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| National Monument of Scotland. |
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| A view from National Monument of Scotland. |
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| Dugald Stewart Monument. |
Done with Calton Hill.
We walked down the hill and continued to Edinburgh Bus Station for Dundee. :)
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| National Archives of Scotland. |
I learned few interesting facts about pound sterling. Shops in England often refuse to accept Scottish banknotes even though pound sterling is used in both England and Scotland. Do you know that pound is the world's oldest currency that is still in use?
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| Royal Bank of Scotland. |
Kingdom of England (English) merged with Kingdom of Scotland (Scottish) in 1700+. So, you can expect English pound was originally NOT THE SAME as Scottish pound. They shared similar values before but Scottish pound dropped so it was pegged to English pound sterling. Dalam Melayu, kita panggil tambat nilai duit rasanya. What I understand here, both are similar but not the same. :p Haha.
Pound banknotes issued by Bank of England is 'more powerful' than the one issued by Bank of Scotland.
Interesting much!
:D
Okayyy, till next posts!
Salam.
HK, Czech
161012
