After a relatively late start, we walked into the city centre again and made our way up to Calton Hill, which overlooks the city, on one side, and Arthur’s Saddle mountain on the other.
Close to the top of the hill is a cemetery with many old tombs and gravestones, including the large sepulchre of the philosopher David Hume. There was also a statue of Abraham Lincoln, dedicated to dead Scots-American soldiers who fought on both sides of the American Civil War. At the hill’s top, there is an observatory, a lookout tower and a strangeish Romanesque temple structure. There also incredible views out to the Firth of Forth, across the cityscape, and into the hills heading out to the North Sea.
At the base of the hill, on Princes Street near the bridge, some musicians were set up and playing for Hogmanay, and McDow and I sat for a while and enjoyed that while the girls went shopping. Then, we returned to Ryan’s to change and relax a bit before heading out with his flatmate Al (who’s from Bilbao) to see the piper’s parade down the Royal Mile and up into George Street – quite a sight in the freezing cold, several hundred bagpipers marching and playing (if not the thousand that were promised).
After that, we stayed out for the “Night Afore Fiesta,” which was filled with street performers in giant stilted costumes, and had musicians set up on two large stages, one with Celtic music and the other with world music. There was a great Scots-Cuban band, and we ended up doing a lot of Conga lines around the crowd – an excellent way to keep warm in the chilly Scottish night.
We also chanced upon a tiny pub in a side street, called the Auld Hundred, which was close to empty when we arrived, and two bagpipers were on the cusp of starting into a session. What an incredible sound they had in such a small space, with the pub filling far beyond capacity with a clapping audience, who got fully into the music.
Though the packed streets began to empty once the music stopped at midnight, the pubs began to fill, and the night was a good appetiser to the festive mood of the next evening, Hogmanay.
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