Mad Edinburgh

[cessna152towser]

My wife's bridesmaid is over from the Netherlands in Edinburgh on holiday this week and we met her and her boyfriend there for lunch today. First time I have had to suffer Edinburgh city centre for more than a year, with its awful Royal Mile full of tourist tat shops. We live just 55 miles from Edinburgh but it is the one place in Scotland I would rather avoid. Much too touristy and too gimmicky and the locals are probably the least friendly of all Scots. Even though the frivolities of the festival and the tattoo are over for another year there were still plenty of tourists around today. I wore my Hunting Wallace kilt. Thankfully I never met any smart asses who claimed to be direct descendents of William Wallace. As far as I know William Wallace never sired any children and the surname Wallace simply denotes someone of Welsh ancestry. The only reason I occasionally wear a Wallace kilt is that I had a great grandmother who bore that surname. Mercifully there was no shortage of kilt clad busking pipers on the streets with their begging bowls and wearing those silly beefeater hats and white hose to amuse and entertain the tourists and submitting to being the subjects of many photographs so I was able to sneak unmolested under the radar, wearing my kilt casually with black hose and polo shirt, without being hassled as some sort of curio by our visitors. I did spot a few other casually kilted persona, may have been like minded Scots or perhaps American tourists. I just don't get why anyone would ever choose to visit mad manic Edinburgh when there is so much more of the real Scotland to see, from the majestic mountains of the Highlands, through the splendid architecture of Glasgow with its beautiful parks, vibrant waterfront and friendly locals to the rolling hills of the Southern Uplands and the fine sandy beaches of the Western Isles and of the Solway Coast. Ah well, perhaps I best not rant, the magic of the name EDINBURGH somehow conjures up the idea of a must see destination for folks worldwide and provides a much needed boost for our Scottish tourism.