Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2010

While wandering the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, we have been sticking our noses down the “Closes” that branch off quite often. All the guide books say that there are some cool & interesting things down there and that we should poke around, so we did. The Close pictured above looked interesting due to the carvings over it, so we went in & found a kilt maker tucked away back there. We spent a very enjoyable half hour or so learning about the many patterns and eventually making a purchase. See below.

Edinburgh, Scotland, 2010

While in there I asked one of them how old the building was and he told me that that that depended upon how you defined it. It seems that in the 1700’s the building fell down, hence the quote above the entrance to the Close.

Huh?

A guy was trapped in the collapsed building. When he heard workers in the rubble he called out to them. His words are recorded above the entrance for posterity and are well known by many (at least many of the folks that we know):

“Heave away chaps, I’m no dead yet”

Who knew? (And that’s not a typo; it’s Scottish.)

Edinburgh, Scotland, 2010

BTW: Shortly after this, we went and tried “whisky”. We discovered that 1) we like it and 2) we have expensive taste. Neither comes as a surprise.