from Princeton to Oxford: The Royal Mile

2 July 2018

The Royal Mile is the main street through Edinburgh’s Old Town. It starts at the base of the castle and runs downhill from there. We spent the afternoon walking along it and peeking in at some of the sights. We learned a lot of history tidbits by following along with Rick Steve’s guided walk!

We saw the one remaining “tenement” (medieval skyscraper) building left from the 1600s, when the wealthy merchants still lived in Old Town (in the 1700s New Town was built, and they moved out). We toured inside St. Giles Kirk and learned about John Knox, who preached there founded Presbyterianism in Scotland in the 1500s. He was adamant that his followers be able to read the word of God, and thus brought increased literacy to Scotland. This helped Scotland be prominent during the Age of Enlightenment. Knox removed all the stained glass from St. Giles, as he wanted the parishioners to read and not follow along with the pictures.

On A's request, we also spent some time in the National Museum of Scotland. They had great displays on technology, and we looked in the Scottish history section, too.

We stopped for dinner, then finished up the walk by peeking in at Holyrood Palace. We couldn't get too close, though, because the Queen was in residence!