July 15-30, 2023
15th - Arrival | 16th - Dean Village | 17th - Portabello Beach | 18th - Union Canal | 19th - Baird & Blackford |
20th - Mercat Cross | 21st - Cramond Beach | 22nd - Botanical Gardens | 23rd - Stirling | 24th - Scottish Museum |
25th - Duddingston | 26th - Pentland Hills | 27th - Glasgow | 28th - Gardens | 29th - Rugby game |
Sunday
Sunday morning. The first full day of our vacation after a good night’s sleep. What shall we do?
We heard of a little area near the city center called “Dean Village”, a historic nest of old buildings tucked into the river valley. It sounded lovely and after a quick breakfast, started to walk in that direction.
Wandering the neighborhoods along the way
St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral
Typical “upper class” apartment living in the city
Fettes College – with Super Zoom!
Welcome to Dean Village!
But first, the cemetery
Dean Cemetery was a beautiful setting, full of mature trees and landscaping, and a wonderful collection of gorgeous headstones. It was a pleasure just to walk through and enjoy the peace and quiet of this oasis.
Even someone from the HMS Terror!
As we strolled through the pathways, we (Dan) noticed that this place held some rather surprising headstones, including John Goodsir (major contributions to understanding of cell and tissue structure and function), Edward Forbes (influenced Charles Darwin), and John Hughes Bennett (first description of leukemia as a blood disorder). Not that many people know any of these names. But Scotland is known for contributing to medical science and here was just a little bit of proof.
From the cemetery we continued down the hill to actual village. Dean Village is one of the oldest villages surviving, first mentioned in 1535. The existence of Dean Village as it stands today can be attributed to being “overlooked” over the years. It was first bypassed by the high Dean Bridge in 1831, and then again by the Belford Bridge in 1871. The village was eventually associated with decay and poverty, and it reached a low point around 1960. Only in the 1970s was the area recognized as an important one, and restoration was begun to save the village.
A mix of old and new
I chuckled at the number of tourists, and here I had only just learned of this place
It really is a little oasis in the city
Leaving the charming village behind, we headed to Fishers in the City for lunch. Their fish ‘n chips get excellent reviews, and I’d been wanting to experience them for myself since the last time we were in the city. We were nearby and it was lunch time – a perfect combination!
As it was still early we were one of the few in the restaurant, but the seats filled up as we ate. Dan enjoyed a lovely bowl of mussels, and I had the fish ‘n chips. It was good, but maybe I had built up my expectations too high. Regardless, I did not regret having lunch there, but now lunch was over and we had plans for the afternoon!
But first, a quick coffee from next door
A small shop with great service (and great coffee)
Knowing that we had all kinds of time to devote to anything or nothing, we decided to sign up for a couple of guided tours. The first one was today: the Mercat “Blood & Gore” tour, starting from the Surgeons Hall Museum. We rejected the “ghosts and ghouls” tours, just wanting more of the history behind the medical field that got started in the city. I hoped that this tour would round out our knowledge, and maybe even provide a couple of nuggets of interest!
Emily was fantastic and led a good tour. It wasn’t nearly as in depth as either of us had been hoping, and spent quite a bit of time on what seemed to be trivial subjects, but overall it was an enjoyable time. One thing that she said that made me laugh was how there were so many bodies layered in burial sites in Greyfriars Kirk, that it was like “a cemetery lasagna”. What a great imagery that brings to mind!
After the tour we entered the Surgeon’s Museum itself, which was loaded with an incredible array of items. We could have easily spent another hour in the Pathology Museum portion itself, if we weren’t already tuckered out from our busy day. Instead, we went back to our room and enjoyed some seagull baby watching: there were two fledglings on the roof of the building across the street.