Sunday, July 9, 2023 

We meet Hermione for breakfast at the New Town Fox, which is farther than we thought and takes a hot minute on the bus, but we get there. 

Breakfast is delicious, and the place itself is great. It’s a really cute little cafe nestled into a small building in, as the name suggests, New Town. This part of town was constructed in the 1700s. A 26-year-old architect won the city’s design competition for the new part of town, and this was the result. The design of New Town is Georgian, similar to Dublin, with steps going up to the front door, smokestacks on top, and windows that start huge at the bottom and get smaller as they go up. It’s odd to think of an area built in the 18th century as “new,” but that’s the scale we’re working with here. 

After breakfast, Hermione takes us to a Sunday market a few blocks away. There are all sorts of things, from food to clothing to leather goods. It’s very charming, and it’s bustling with people. Mom and I get sucked right in and wind up with a couple of treasures. “What have you done?” I ask Hermione, half convinced she’s in cahoots with some of the sellers and will get a kickback. 

“Sorry,” she replies. “It seems like you’re really not having fun here at all.” 

We continue into the Old Town area and towards Victoria Street, since mom hasn’t seen it yet. It’s absolutely packed. It’s also so cute in the daylight. Though, as Hermione points out, “Put up bunting and anything looks cute.” All the storefronts are different colors, and the buildings wind like a gentle corkscrew lower to the next square. 

We pop into a few little shops, then walk further on and end up next to Greyfriars Bobby, a famous Edinburgh location. It’s a statue of a little dog who lived in the 19th century in Edinburgh. After his owner passed away, Bobby followed him to the cemetery and kept going there day after day, for 14 years, until he died. It’s supposed to be good luck to rub his nose, and the metal there is worn shiny from all the people touching it. He is a very good dog. 

We pop in for lunch at a cute little place called St. Giles Cafe, and then Hermione departs to catch her train. We say goodbye, telling her to visit anytime, and to tell Slouch hello for us. How fun that we got a chance to see her! I (and every hiker ever) have said a million times that it’s the people who make the trail. You could hike the same trail over and over again and have a totally different experience each time, all because of the people. Hermione was such a lovely part of my AT thru-hike, and I remember so clearly the sections that we hiked with her and Slouch in Virginia. To have that connection still is a gift. 

After Herman leaves, Mom and I continue walking down the Royal Mile since we haven’t done it all yet. Our plan is to go all the way down and then come back up, but of course we get sidetracked. First we see a sign that says “craft market” and “homemade gifts,” so obviously we go in. It’s so cool. There are all these local makers selling so many different kinds of things, and it’s in an old church building with the stained glass windows still intact. 

Our next stop that we stumble upon is the Museum of Childhood. It’s tiny, kitschy, and joyful. It first explores the concept of childhood and how it’s changed over the ages, walking through changes in education, family life, and play. There’s a section devoted entirely to garments, including school uniforms, shoes, and children’s fashion. Apart from the creepy mannequins, it is so amazing to see all those old clothes preserved.

Another display is about play. There are board games dating back to the 18th century, and phew, thank God we’ve advanced since then because those looked boring as. On the more modern historical end, there’s an original Mouse Trap game that looks basically the same as today’s version except for some retro graphics. There are little paper figurines and plasticine and a display on “books” that kids had written in the early 1900s. There are cross stitch samplers and outdoor toys and legos. It’s a celebration of childhood and child development and how, though our views have changed, kids are fundamentally the same: creative, messy, and imaginative beyond adult belief.

The third little surprise we find on our Royal Mile walk is Dunbar’s Close Garden. You walk under the archway marking Dunbar’s Close, through an iron gate, and there, suddenly, is a tranquil little space of trees and flowers and shrubs. In the back there’s a section called “lawn and wilderness,” which seems like an overstatement to me, but it’s a nice spot to enjoy a patch of sunshine for a minute. There’s a bench, too, and we sit there marveling at how quickly and fully the sounds of city—cars, people, construction—have faded. 

We continue down the Royal Mile after that, reminded of the value of just wandering around a place and seeing what you find. I realize as we come to the end that I’m now very close to Arthur’s Seat, a hill that looks over the town and a popular spot for a short hike. I’d thought about doing it tomorrow since it’s a little hot today (not that I’m complaining; it has been divine to see so much sun all day). But now that we’re right here, I throw my hair up in a bun, refill my water bottle, and decide to just go for it. Mom stays down lower and discovers a nice little pond while I join the horde and walk uphill. There’s an ice cream truck at the base of the hill, and I realize I’m quite hungry and could use some sugar to fuel me up, but the guy says he’s closing down. The disappointment that wells within me is a palpable entity. Hope I don’t get hangry on this hike. 

It’s not a long hike by any means, but it is quite steep at points, and there are tons of people everywhere in clothing that ranges from fancy date to rugged hiker. I follow the signs for the summit and follow it up, up, up, passing people, the views getting better every moment. You can see into the bay and the North Sea beyond, and, once I finally navigate the many little paths and rocky scrambles to the top, towards the Old Town and the castle at the center of Edinburgh.

It’s quite a spectacular view, and that seems to be what everyone up here thinks, including the group that’s hogging the summit monument, unmoving. I accept my fate, taking a photo of it, then move towards another monument with a metal plaque that shows how far certain landmarks are from this point. As one other person and I are trying to take a photo of the marker, another guy walks up, talking on the phone, and plops his bottle of Dr. Pepper right on the monument, totally unaware. Right, that’s me for this hike. Got my view and my workout, and now it’s time to get the hell out of this very-much-not-wilderness. 

As I’m coming down, though, I ponder going up another hill that I could see from the top of Arthur’s Seat that looks like it’s closer to town. I’m just about to talk myself out of it when I think, nah, when am I going to get this chance again? So the second I come down, I head right back up this second hill. I’m right; it does have a better view of the town itself. The sun has dipped behind a cloud now, there aren’t as many people on this hill, and there are purple flowers and birds just over the edge of the view. Ah. That’s more like it. I look out towards the town and take in the shape of it, how the Royal Mile climbs gradually all the way to the castle. I don’t really know the history of this place at all, but it intuitively makes sense why they put the castle where they did. It’s up on this enormous rocky outcropping, as if it was just pushed up from the earth and the castle appeared there. 

I go back down and meet up with Mom, who presents me with a bacon chicken Caesar wrap from Starbucks. I squeal in delight and nearly rip it out of her hands. 

“Is it good?” she asks a minute later, then looks at me holding the last bite. “Oh. Was it good?”

Back on the Royal Mile, things are starting to close down. It is a Sunday, after all, and now gone 7:00. We pass the Tolbooth Tavern, housed in an iconic Edinburgh building that dates back to the 16th century, when tolls were collected from travelers entering the area. Apparently the building is haunted, and it’s not hard to see why this is believed: it is tiny, creaky, and properly adorable. The cozy pub is everything you would imagine from such an old place. There’s even a musician in traditional Scottish garb singing as we walk in and, miraculously, snag the last available table for dinner. We share a bowl of cullen skink, a traditional fish stew that we’ve both come to love, goat cheese and pepper croquettes, and a salad. And a local IPA for me, of course. Is this a food blog now? 

Our creepy-ass apartment has one redeeming quality, and that is its shower and bathtub. Every time we have a bathtub we totally forget about it until it’s the evening and a bath sounds amazing. So we go into every still-open shop we can find on the way back, looking for bath bombs or at least bubble bath, and wind up with nothing. Accepting our fate, we go back to our not-quite-home-away-from-home. 

Mom will deny that she’s superstitious, but she is: she’ll knock on wood, avoid transactions that involve any repetition of the number 6, and read into things as omens. I don’t think I’m quite at this level, but we do both share an ability to get easily creeped out. Her unease with the apartment has rubbed off on me, and, considering how old, creepy, and reportedly haunted nighttime Edinburgh is, the mood is decidedly spooky as we arrive at our flat in the dark, make our way up the five dusty, weird-smelling flights of stairs, and into the apartment. 

When we left this morning, I could have sworn that I only locked the bottom lock, but it takes both that and the top one to open the door. I also could have sworn that we turned off the bathroom light, but it’s on when we enter. The floorboards creak. The darkness seems very dark. We turn on every light in the place immediately and open every door (there are a lot of doors) as wide as it will go. The two paintings with faces in the living room make me uneasy, as does the strange little clown painting and three mirrors in the bathroom.

I put off taking a shower because part of me is afraid that the ghost I’m now convinced lives here (what’s behind all those locked doors?) will appear when I’ve got my eyes closed rinsing out shampoo. I roll my eyes at myself, though, and do it, but I blast music the whole time and sing like everything is fine, like I’m not uneasy, like I don’t believe in ghosts. (I don’t think I believe in them, anyway, though I’m open to the possibility that there are many things that exist that I cannot see or understand.)

I walk past Mom, who’s working on setting up the drying rack for laundry in the kitchen, and she jumps, not expecting me there. We both laugh, then stand and watch the washing machine as it counts down. Eight minutes, seven, six. We go into the living room and stretch, keeping our back to the walls. Then finally the cycle is done, we hang it to dry, and we mercifully retreat into bed. If there are ghosts, they don’t bother us. Not that we remember, anyway.