This:
Holyrood Park is a series of hills and basalt cliffs in the center of Edinburgh, and it was the obvious place for me to begin my explorations of the city. I got started early with a pretty good idea of where to start my hike. My research had indicated that the east side was the "easier" approach. Phew, good thing I learned that, I might have accidently taking the boring way up! Heading straight for the west, I started with the tallest hill: Arthur's Seat. I was a bit worried about my sore leg, but it held up like a champ and only started bothering me hours later when I was just wandering about the city. Sadly, pictures can't really convey the feeling of places like this, but I tried my best. Here are a few of Arthur's Seat and the adjacent Salisbury Crags. I'll be putting the rest on the photo site.
Oh, and the view from the top wasn't too shabby either:
There were quite a few people along the paths and at the top, but I can't really blame them - it sure beats a treadmill. I descended a bit from Arthur's Seat to a steeper, rocky side that had no trails and nobody else on it, and just relaxed there for awhile. Two loose terriers were running around together chasing rabbits but were far too slow and clumsy to catch any (it was very amusing to watch them try though). I then spent awhile going from peak to peak, and eventually walked along the top of the crag before descending the rest of the way.
In the afternoon I visisted the National Gallery, which was alright, but mostly not the style I enjoy the most. I also walked up the much smaller Calton Hill and checked out the monuments there. My understanding is that the city bought the hill about 300 years ago and has just used it as a park and a place to stick monuments whenever they want to put one somewhere. It had a nice view as well (the first picture in the post was from Calton Hill) but it didn't really compare to the earlier ones. I covered more ground walking up The Royal Mile to quickly check out Edinburgh Castle, which I'll probably check out more thoroughly later, and visited a few of the shopping areas just to look around. I'll probably do some more specific targets or local tours for the next couple days, but I wouldn't be surprised if I find my way back to Holyrood for another visit if my leg holds up.
5 comments:
Interesting hill photos - so how did the hills you climbed compare in difficulty to the one big one we climbed in San Jose? And what was the age demographics of the other hikers you noticed? And were they in any kind of hiking gear/footwear? Just curious!!
Mike
I'd say the height was comparable to the one in Spain, but that it was quite a bit easier to hike up. There were crude paths up, and the steepness was more broken up so you got a bit of a rest for stretches. Also it was 11C or something today, so much less hot. Demographics was probably generally 20-60 at the top, but the paths up the opposite side were quite a bit less steep. The route I went up seemed to mostly be 20-40 probably. From what I saw it seemed to be about half locals and half tourists. Wasn't really looking at footwear, but with the on and off rain stretches along the steep side were pretty slick.
Glad you enjoyed your day so much! I'm looking forward to seeing many more pictures from hills and mountains around the world that I would be much to lazy to climb.
I remember we went on a ghost tour in Edinburgh which was pretty fun, and I'm sure there are all sorts of other quirky tours.
I don't know how much longer you're in Scotland, but you might want to check this out: http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/
Disregard my by earlier post, heh.
Nice find, that does look like an awesome place to go exploring.
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