The Edinburgh Castle and Dungeon

This is one of the first sights we went to see here at Edinburgh, it was an obvious choice because when you come to Edinburgh this is one of the first sights that you encounter and it sort of beckons at you. The city has a concept of the old town and the new town, am not sure if I have spoken of this earlier but if I have then please bear with me. There is this long street which is almost 2 Kms long and is sort of like the Mount Road in Chennai, although not as wide and neither as populated. This street is the shopping haven of Edinburgh and perhaps the busiest street here. On the backside of this street lies the New town and on the front side as you walk on the street you see across gardens, a small mountain on which the castle and similar old structures are. It’s like being in the cradle of modern times and looking into the past.

The Edinburgh Castle looks soulful and haunting from the street below, so obviously it was our first choice to see. Walking up the Princes Street to the castle is quite a steep climb and so you reach there huffing and puffing. The castle reminded me of the Golconda fort in Hyderabad and I felt after seeing the castle that we have forts that are far more secure than this castle.

One good thing we decided on was to take the audio tour; it has all the titbit gossips and detailed information that otherwise we wouldn’t have known. So as we walked through the castle there were numbers alongside the signboard hung and when we punched in those numbers into the audio tour handset the description of that particular section would start up.

I particularly liked the section of the war memorial; it was huge and dedicated to the honourable martyr’s of war. This section was built like a church in the sense that it had painted windows as well, on closer inspection, it showed that as soon as you entered, the painted windows in the beginning depict stories from the bible, starting from Adam and then the windows towards the end depict the destruction and futility of war. It was well thought of and most tastefully done. There were books there which were very old registers filled with the names of soldiers died in war, the year and the name of the war.

The section with the Queen’s crown was a disappointment; Queen Mary of the Scots was truly a poor cousin to Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Having seen the numerous crowns at Tower of London, each filled with thousands of diamonds, this single crown in the Edinburgh Castle failed to evoke any sense of wonder.

Well, the castle in all was lovely since it was a part of history and it was well put up for display, trying to weave a story of royalty, the prisoners in the dungeons below, the war heroes and of the country itself.

Dungeons reminds me, this place is filled with ghost stories and horror stories of how people were tortured and why. Things like an entire family hit by plague were locked inside a cave so that they wouldnt infect the others and left to die and when the daughter of that family who was not infected, protested, she was thrown into the cave as well!! There were all sorts of equipment to inflict pain, hooks to hang you alive by the base of your spine and then leave you blood dripping till death captures you. How a human can inflict another human so much pain and stand by unmoved is beyond me?

Well, just so that we werent to miss one of the most touted tourist attractions we went into the Edinburgh Dungeon next to waverly station and went through the frightening tour of the Dungeon. There were characters made of to look as those of the ancient days ranging from bloody thirsty judges to maniacal cannibals to assistant science researchers (researching on human body and its functions by bringing in live body and taking their parts out). It sent the chills through my spine and while i knew it was all make believe and that the Dungeon associates were professional enough to not touch any of the tourists, i just couldnt wait to get out of there.

It ends with a small ride too, the ones you see inside amusement parks where the ride goes all the way up and then drops in the blink of an eye!!! Well i skipped that one, coz after almost an hour of the petrifying tour, i must confess, i wasnt brave enough to do the ride. Photography wasnt allowed, but as soon as you enter while taking the tickets a picture is taken of you trying to chop off your partner's head and well i must say i was a bit taken back to see the look of pure glee on my face for that one!