Edinburgh and its Historical Ghosts

I could go on about Edinburgh. And the scotch. The architecture. The pubs. Oh, and the meat pies. The warm beer that actually tastes alright. The scotch... did I already say that? 

I heard about these wonderful things for years about the city, which propelled to the top of my Cities-To-Visit-Before-I-Have-Kids-and-Become-Too-Poor-and-Tired-to-Travel List.

Today, I'm telling you about something else: Edinburgh loves its historical ghosts. The city bleeds history – and has a lot of history about bleeding – and embraces it. All of it.

Here, they build monuments to poets and writers, not politicians and war heroes. There too many Robbie Burns statues to count, and there's beautifully Gothic, and monumental, the Walter Scott Monument.

The Walter Scott Monument.
Writers so rarely get this type of recognition.

It's not only the monuments that give you a sense of this city's strange love of its own history, warts and all – it's the stories they tell.

History in Edinburgh, and perhaps the rest of Scotland, is taught and told in yarns over pints in a pub or through ghost stories well after dark – all with that typically wry, ironical Scottish self-deprecation. 

If you are to believe the tour guides' theatrics, this city is filled with ghosts. The medieval city, most of which still eerily stands, was so crowded the dead were simply buried under the sidewalks. You're literally walking on the dead when you window shop along the Royal Mile.

There's the legend of Bloody MacKenzie, whose mausoleum is said to be cursed and – because you must include the young 'uns – is a stone's throw away from a school. 

There's the pub in the Grass Market named after a woman who was hanged and then miraculously came back to life. There's the death and suffering Edinburgh's vault, which housed the city's poorest, most desperate during the Industrial Revolution, not a great time to be poor.

The other pub named for Deacon Brodie, the cabinet-maker who robbed the homes he built cabinets for and was hanged on the gallows he built. If the Scots are known anything it's their gallows humour.

These stories and many more about battles and betrayals and the barbarism, ages ago and in the recent past, show this city embraces the ghosts of its past – and the mysterious rolling fog and the darkly romantic Gothic architecture just fits naturally with it.

Edinburgh's Castle.

Just in case a duel breaks out,
there's lots of weapons on the wall.

The gloomy view from Edinburgh Castle.

Strolling the streets

The best way to discover a city is walking it. Strolling down streets and into distant districts, and in Edinburgh's case, up a hill and cliffs – Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags – overlooking the city. On foot, we visited the Botanical Gardens and the nearby Stockbridge neighbourhood, with its cute storefronts and Georgian houses. With a hot coffee in hand, we also discovered Leith, the city's old port and working class area.

Some might prefer seeing a city from station to station on the underground subway or getting the summary on a Hop-On-Hop-Off tour bus, but all we need is two feet and heartbeat.

Discovery Walks stop for nothing!
Even the rain!

The Salisbury Crags

Deep thoughts after the walk.

Ghost Sighting

We booked a tour in Edinburgh. Usually we avoid the tourist-y things, but we compelled to do it in such a spooky, superstitious city.

We heard ghost stories in the Greyfriars graveyard and visited vaults built into the South Bridge that were built for storing merchants' wares but eventually stored people in horrendous conditions. At one point we heard footsteps running past the door of the vault we were in, even though no one else was in the tunnel.

After the eerie tour, we walked through the Old Town and snapped a few photos of the dark, quiet, deserted street on our way to a pub for a night cap. I turned around and snapped a random photo behind us.

Look closely, crossing the street in front of the church.

Upon closer examination, you can see what could be an odd reflection of light, or a ghost, crossing a street. 

Here's it looks like in the un-enhanced close-up.

Is it a ghost? Kata thinks not, but I think so – this is a city that embraces its history and the ghosts that come along with it.