Two-faced city or multifaceted gem? Both!

Only now is this becoming Scotland Stories, in plural, because although Edinburgh and Scotland are full of stories (more on well known ones later), finding the time to record them is still a challenge. We’ve been almost three weeks in Scotland by now, and according to legend this is already more time than it took for me to feel at home in Ireland – even to pick up an Irish accent, it is said. The accent is still firmly with me, as many more or less officials comment on (“You are sure you do not have dual citizenship?” – Immigration and Passport Services, “You sound more Irish than [the Irish writer]” – Vodafone guy from Northern Ireland, “You don’t sound Norwegian” – Front desk in IPS and three different banks), and maybe the adopted Irishness has also followed me, for as of yet Edinburgh does not strike me as my home town, like Dublin did surprisingly quickly.

Maybe it is the complex nature of Edinburgh that makes it harder to get under the surface of it and feel included, compared to the straight forward welcome from Dublin. Many tell tales of the duality of this city, referring to dichotomies such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by a son of the city, which many refer to as an image of the capital itself: Outwardly and publicly neat, moral and well to do, while secretly harbouring dark fantasies and partaking in activities that do not stand the day of light. Its nicknames may also be said to reflect the same complementary contradictions: Auld Reekie is one, alluding to the smelly and dirty air hovering above the town in older days, a result of Nor Loch (where Princes Street Gardens are today) being a common waste pond for sewage and discards, even serving as a execution place by drowning, as well as the strong wafts from breweries and distilleries in the city, and mining works across the river in Fife. Another nickname, referring to a different side of the city is Athens of the North, telling the story of Edinburgh as a central place in the Scottish Enlightenment, source to many philosophers and writers (David Hume, Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Watt, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns etc) and even with its own Greek temples and pillars, both on Calton Hill and throughout the city as inspiration for many an official building.

Just as striking is the doublet of the Old and New Towns, Old Town consisting of the now touristy strip down on the crag down from the Castle Esplanade, the Royal Mile as it is known, and surrounding streets, closes and gates. This part of the city is characterised by tall buildings, many 15 stories high, long, narrow closes that are but a metre or two wide, many now underground as the centuries have built on top of them as foundations for government buildings and the like, and buildings coloured dark over the centuries by the weather and the activities of Auld Reekie. The New Town on the other side, literally, is a well planned, geometrically organised and mainly Georgian part of town, built with the well to do in mind, who had had enough of the filth and crowds of the Old Town, and escaped the hustle, bustle and sewage of the dark alleys on the south side of the old Nor Loch.

They moved in to wide avenues, fashionable crescents with private gardens, bright and light windows that would see the sun as they were not obscured by clothes lines and next door neighbours across the road so close you could touch them by leaning out your window. And still today the New Town is more fashionable, sober, prim, proper and grandiose, with specialist boutique shops, hunting outfits and organically grown free range fair trade courgettes, while the Old Town is where tourists flock to aaw and coo over kilts, pipers, famous pubs with historical names alluding to the seedy underside of Edinburgh, murderers and body snatchers, where they look for ghosts and quizzical literary Inspectors, go on staggeringly drunk stag and hen parties, mass walking tours and to strip clubs (often also named after the aforementioned murderers), and where they can fill up on baked tatties and deep fried anythings. Personally, I am a big fan of both – in moderation.

And there is a lot of otherness in Edinburgh as well, that these stark contrasts fail to incorporate. The city is a lot more than the black and white, dark and light, old and new that these characterisations suggest. As well as Old Town and New Town, there is Leith, a formerly slightly run down docklands area with social housing and immigrants, now turning this into an advantage, with exotic shops (and the only place I’ve found the necessary Chinese supermarkets), alternative cafes and cool pubs and bars. There is Broughton, Edinburghs gay central, with everything from leather nights to great restaurants, many good second hand bookshops and quirky, organic cafes. There is the Scottish Parliament at the bottom of the Royal Mile, a mashup of architectural traditions and a congregational centre for the BBC around the corner, and across the road from Arthur’s Seat and Holyrood, the Queen’s castle in the Scottish capital. There are big shopping centres plotted around the city catering for every need, real or advertised, there are theatres, film centres, restaurants of the traditional nationality mix, there are all the makings of any European city, and while the dichotomy still stands, it is not the only (two) aspects of a city which can boast of so much more – and being beautiful while it does so. (Pictures to follow...)