A Walker in the Suburbs

How can you not love a city with a mountain in the middle of it?  Arthur’s Seat rises 823 feet above sea level, rewarding hikers who reach its summit (or close to it) with generous views of land and sea. 

Today’s rare clear morning drew people of all ages and climbing levels to the hill. You can see them here, making their final ascent up the extinct volcano. 

Once on top, you could see for miles — park and city and the Firth of Forth. Imagine having these views in your back pocket, there for the taking whenever you have the energy for the climb. 

We approached Edinburgh Castle from the rear, which shows to good effect the extinct volcano plug on which it’s built. It’s mostly sheer rock back there, and the fortress seems to grow from it. Impregnable is the word I would use, though it’s the most besieged castle in Scotland.

Now it’s tourists attacking the fortress — not Jacobites. 

But if you can find a quiet corner — especially a place like the 12th-century Saint Margarett’s Chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh — you feel the majesty and antiquity of the place. 

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Scottish programming to bring you …. England. Yes, we crept down into “enemy territory” today, joked our tour guide as we headed out on our day trip to Hadrian’s Wall in England’s far north. 

Built by the Romans about 2,000 years ago, the wall was either a raw display of power or a way to enhance the local economy, depending upon who you listen to.

Whatever its rationale, it’s still having an impact two millennia later, though perhaps not the kind originally intended. I wasn’t counting on it to protect me from heathens — but to fill me with awe. It did.

It’s August in Edinburgh, and we felt the buzz the moment we stepped off the train. Scotland’s capital city has a force field. 

In part it’s all the people clogging the street, so many that we could barely snake our way through with our pull bags and backpacks. 

In part it’s the festival, the original Edinburgh Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which we sampled this evening.  

And then … there are the bagpipes.

It’s the first place we’ve left and come back to, though only for one night. An early start and late drop-off from our Orkney trip has made Inverness the place to be, and now the place to leave once again.

Still, there’s something quite nice about returning to a city, a way to know it better. 

I felt at home here right away, and now, par for the course, I hate to leave.

“It looks like someone stabbed the island with a knife,” said Stewart, our guide on this three-day tour of the Orkney Islands. He was referring to this collapsed sea cave known as a gloup. 

The gloup does look like a large earth wound, and the North Sea rushes in from the back end, making it gurgle and growl.  Though it was a warm day for these climes (closer to Norway than London), the temperature of the surrounding water is in the upper 50s. I wouldn’t want to fall in.

Stewart was born here, and his grandparents are Orkadians, so he knows the hidden jewels of this faraway place. Tomorrow, he’ll show us more of them.

Inverness is the capital of the Highlands, but the mountains mostly disappeared as we chugged up to the city by train last evening. 

There are a few hills, but for the most part Inverness is far less “highlandy” than some of the other places we’ve visited. It sits in the Great Glen, which runs from here to Fort William. It’s a natural travel route, a break in the hills, a passageway. 

Today we made our own passageway, touring the city center, exploring the islands in the River Ness (so shallow that if the monster migrated from the loch we would have seen him) and finding out where the Great Glen Way and the Caledonian Canal enter the city. 

If our steps left a wake like the boats we saw in the canal today, you’d see a lot of backtracking. 

Four days here, barely enough time to know the Trotternish from the Sleat, the Cuillins from the Quiraing. More time here than most places, but still not nearly enough.

Best to leave when you’ve plenty left to explore, I tell myself. But at this point, the cool rational part of me knows that return is unlikely. 

Skye is passing from an actual, physical place to a place I keep only in memory. But there too it will live large.