THURSDAY-Edinburgh, Dark City

We did the bus tour this morning to see our way around Edinburgh. It's such a darkly lovely city. It's not dark in a gothic kind of way, per se. It's dark in the way you might take an average old European city and cloak it in a sort of sinister fairy tale. I'm not sure I'm making sense. Edinburgh sparkles, like pieces of jet or a smokey diamond.

WEDNESDAY-Edinburgh - The Haunted Vaults of South Bridge

After a relaxing morning of breakfast and a massage, we headed for High Street, the Royal Mile, in Edinburgh. Ok... you're need some background to get the context for our tour.


The dark, dirty, cramped city of 1600s Edinburgh wasn't cool enough for the nobles and royalty. They decided to build a whole new Edinburgh right next to it in a fancy Georgian style (we call it Roman revival).

There was still a really cool castle, Edinburgh Castle, on a great craggy hill the old side. The nobles wanted a nice road to go up to it. They finished construction of the Royal Mile (High Street) in 1788 by building it right on top of some of the old Edinburgh.

To support this, they used not only some of the old city, but built 19 major vaulted chambers, some atop others. These vaults were originally intended for storage for businesses above; High Street was the first purpose-built shopping street in Edinburgh.

But the vaults tended to be pretty leaky and wet; not a great place to store stuff. So instead, rich Scotsmen used the vaults for whoring, gambling, drinking, and all kinds of naughty stuff. This brought some legitimate businesses like cobblers who set up shop in the vaults, but mostly a lot of criminals. It was a pretty nasty, vicious, and dangerous place.

In addition, the King decreed that poverty was against the law, so you could be sent to prison or even killed for being destitute. The poor of Edinburgh moved underground into the vaults.

A little economics to set the scene: a good candle at the time was about $20 in today's money. If you had that kind of money, you could get a room somewhere, no matter how nasty, above ground.

Yup, you see where I'm going; the poor living in the vaults had no light. They lived in complete darkness, often starving, searching the damp vaults for scraps of food someone might have dropped, some wine spilled, anything they could get. You can guess where everyone went to the bathroom as well. Not a great place to raise the kids.

By the end of the 1800s the vaults were sealed up 'for good' to end the horror down below. In the 90s the vaults were reopened and offered a treasure trove of artifacts from the time. They also created a great tourist attraction for Edinburgh -- a city regarded by paranormal researchers as the single-most haunted city in all the world.

Whew! There's your background!



We got a haunted tour of the vaults, meeting our guide (Liz) at the St. Giles Cathedral on High Street (Royal Mile). Liz was a hoot and knew how to tell a ghost story. She started out by picking two fellas from the crowd to dramatize how people were whipped and tortured for public viewing at this location. Enjoy some of this on video by clicking here.

Needless to say, I couldn't take a pic in the darkness of the vaults. Despite little LED lights set in the floor and candles posted here and there, it was just too dark and flash was not permitted because it would blind all of us if we did. Liz even led us around with only a candle. I was pretty impressed with the commitment to dark and danger in this tour. In the US we'd be scared of getting sued if someone tripped, or worry someone would light themselves on fire with the candles everywhere.


Serious, this was dark. I really had to concentrate to make sure I kept my feet under me on the uneven flooring and at times the ceilings were low enough I had to crouch while she told the story in that room.








Liz got everyone wound up with a story about some angry ghost that tells people to 'get out' there. Then calmed folks down with the ghost of a friendly cobbler. But... this cobbler doesn't like 'trainers' (sneakers/tennis shoes) and likes to tug the shoestrings of little children who wear them.

There were a fair amount of kids on the trip. The Brits are pretty indulgent with their kids, just like in the US, but I wouldn't call them over-protective. It was perfectly ok to them to bring their four year olds down in the dark to hear spooky stories.

The last vault Liz brought us all into was very small and had a very low ceiling. It was also the only vault on the tour that wasn't lit with little LED lights set in the floor, or any light at all. All we could really see was Liz's face lit by her candle.

She told us about a woman on a tour a few months ago who was in this room and walked backwards into the rear wall until she smashed against the wall. She stayed pinned, flat against it with a look of horror on her face. She finally screamed "NO!!!", tore free, pushed through the others on the tour, and ran from that vault.

Tour operators caught up with her back at ground level where she said someone had pulled her back against the wall and pinned her there. In a gravelly voice, that person had said to her, "get out."

At this point on our tour, Liz said, "and now... we need to get out," and puffed out her candle, disappearing down the narrow corridors. The thirty or so of us jammed into this now pitch-black, low vault didn't waste much time making an orderly exit.


The ghost stories were fun, but one of the things that really stuck with you after was the dank smell from the vaults. There's no fresh air down there and the mildewy, earthy, sepulchral smell seeps into your clothes and comes with you into the dark Scottish evening, reminding you the rest of the night of the Edinburgh that was and still is... just beneath your feet.

TUESDAY-Edinburgh

I am seriously road-weary, thus the break in the blog posts. Plus, most of our day was lost to travel getting to Edinburgh on the train. Our open pass on the rail gives us lots of flexibility, but doesn't guarantee a seat. The first part of the trip I sat on the floor between cars, which was mostly cool and comfortable. But the restroom plumbing between cars was malfunctioning, and it also meant I sat in some kind of leaky water from it. No, I really don't want to talk about it. Or think about it. But a barrel of Bactine would be nice.

It was pretty cool to see the North Sea out our train window as we started coming into Edinburgh, so I tried to get some video of that here for your to enjoy, just click here to watch.

We walked out the strangest dark underground hallway from the train station in Edinburgh to enter the city. It came out in a dark alley on a dark rainy afternoon. That was pretty cool actually. We made our way up a very steep hill to the street level and grabbed a cab to our hotel.

And that was pretty much it. We ordered room service, scheduled some massages, and slept. Huge kudos to our travel agent, Laura, for booking an OUTSTANDINGLY awesome hotel for the end of our trip. Just when we're really spent and need some pampering, Hotel Roxburghe is PERFECT. We're gonna heal up, get some massages Wednesday, and hit it good again.

TUESDAY-Historic York

HISTORIC YORK. WALLED CITY FORTRESS OF KINGS AND LOTS OF CHURCHES.








There you go, that's pretty much the deal with York. Here's some cool pictures of the walls and churches.


Cool note on the picture of the church farther down the page: that little door under the windows on this church? That's called the devil's door. They'd open it so the devil would be able to quickly leave the child during a christening. Seems like the devil could come in that way too, but I don't fully understand all the boogie boogie of the catholic church. Maybe the priest put some kind of one-way hex on it or something like that.















By the way, remember those pictures of businesses I put in yesterday's post? The ones with dirty names? Well, when I found out the big bell in York Minster Church was called "Big Peter" by the locals, all the businesses with names like this one started to make sense.











You can make up your own double entendre about this street name. It also happens to be the longest street name and the shortest street in York

MONDAY-York

Founded by the Romans in 71 AD, York has a rich heritage reaching back 2000 years! Surrounded by all this history and culture, naturally, we spent the day shopping.




There is a huge pedestrian area with shops and restaurants just the other side of the river from our hotel. After yesterday's disgruntlement of shitty travel, we slept in ("lying in" as they say in England) and headed off to eat pastries, pub food, and shopping!

We split up after lunch and went our own way. Jeri got some really lovely things and an excellent pair of boots. She also enjoyed an appointment at a Chinese massage place nearby as she had a pretty stiff neck from the long train ride yesterday.

I enjoyed people watching, listened to a very fun little english/celtic street band that you can listen to by clicking here, bought tea, browsed a few tobacconists, and had an awesome haircut and hot shave. The shave was pretty fantastic and slightly different from the one I had in Paris a few years ago (I don't get a shave that often, so they're pretty memorable and special for me).

This fellow did a lot of lathering with the brush, finished the shave in only two passes (Paris, it was like getting shaved six times), and rubbed a small alum block across the areas that get nicked up the most from at straight-razor. That was a delightfully, prickly burn, but it did stop the nicks from bleeding.

After this I was asked if I wanted my ears flamed. I had no idea what this was and asked him if he meant was ear candling (cuz that's a hoax I'm not interested in paying for - sorry ear candling fans). He said he didn't know what that was, but this was using fire to trim my ear hair. They were pretty furry, so I agreed. My barber proceeded to bat my ears with a flaming cotton ball soaked in denatured alcohol. Pretty darn effective at removing ear hair! Here's an example of someone else getting it done, click here.

Moisturizer and a hot towel after, a nice backrub, and finished with some Turkish lemon cologne that I really enjoyed-- smelled lightly of fresh lemon peel :).










While I wandered the street, I enjoyed the names of some of the businesses and took some snaps so you could enjoy them too.

We had dinner tonight at an Italian place. The English seem to have italian restaurants all over. I thought I'd see Indian restaurants everywhere (well, the pubs all do offer some indian dishes in their menus alongside traditional pub food) based on watching too many reruns of Red Dwarf. We've had Italian twice since coming here and it really has been pretty excellent.

All in all, a nicely relaxing day in York!

SUNDAY-Travel to York

We set out from Postbridge bright and early. I missed it as soon as we dropped our car in Exeter.

We got on a rail trip from hell to York. Sunday meant all the Brits were coming back from weekend trips. The train was packed with people filling even the aisles and the spaces between the cars. We were lucky to even have a seat.

That packed train was hot the whole 5 hour trip from Bristol to York. We were so glad to get to our hotel. They lost our reservation and did a bunch of stupid things in a row not worth mentioning.

And the bloody bells started ringing across the river here at 7:30 and haven't stopped yet (its after 9). Yes. Continuous goddamn church bells. They aren't even playing a tune. Ahhhh... my kingdom for a sniper rifle.




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SATURDAY-Tavistock Inn in Poundsgate

After the Wistman's Wood, we had dinner at the Tavistock Inn in Poundsgate. A perfect, chilly twilight was just setting in as we pulled into the car park and saw this sign. I can tell you, we made sure to be very formal as we parked.




You may remember me talking about the Tavistock Inn in my entry on Widecombe-in-the-Moor. Tavistock was the first stop of the Black Rider (the devil) who was on his way to Widecombe to claim the soul of a man he'd made a deal with in Widecombe.




And yes, the ring burnt into the bar when the devil replaced his red-hot mug on the bar that October afternoon in 1683 is still there!!! I know it's a fairytale and all, but it was great fun to visit and get a picture of it :)




I had a lovely dish of Yorkshire Pudding with beans and sausage. Yorkshire pudding is kind of a cross between a Pizza Hut pan pizza crust and those tube biscuits you'd buy at the grocery store. It's crispy, buttery, chewy, and elastic. It's made from a batter that's poured into a hot tin with smoking-hot, rendered beef fat that's put back in the oven to quickly bake and rise. So yummy with the smokey pork sausages that are made here in Dartmoor.



A fun location and a great dinner!

SATURDAY-Wistman's Wood

The number one place I most wanted to visit in Dartmoor (and by extension, the number one place I wanted to visit on this trip) is The Wistman's Wood. This is located about a 1.5 mile hike along the side of a very steep foothill of two tors. The elevation doesn't change much, but walking along the edge of a craggy, muddy hillside for a mile and a half is exhausting! Luckily the weather was lovely!!! Very windy and chilly and overcast. Some of my favorite things :)

This small wood is what's left of what's believed to have been a vast forest that once covered large areas of Dartmoor during the Stone Age, almost a million years ago. If you're a Tolkien fan, think Fangorn Forest.

Scientifically speaking, the Wistman's Wood contains very short oak trees that occur nowhere else in Dartmoor. There are also mosses and lichen that grow no where else in the world. It's truly a scientific wonder. Even more amazing is how little the oaks seem to grow here. Most are only 10 feet or so tall and they've been that way for centuries, possibly longer.

In 1620 Tristram Risdon wrote that the trees were "no taller than a man may touch to top with his head." In 1912 a British geological survey party tried to walk the wood, but gave up due to the dense vegetation.




I can tell you, I can't imagine any way you could walk through them. The wood has grown up amid granite boulders. If you could pass through undeterred by the moss-carpeted, slippery boulders (and undeterred by the black adders that are said to be all over the moors, but especially in the Wistman's Wood), then you would most certainly be deterred by the wood itself.



The branches grow in a twisty way, like interlaced boney fingers. They weave together so low and dense, it's impossible to see far forward, let alone pass through. I think you'd have to slither along on your belly like the adders themselves.

In the early 1970s the trees were reported as being very distorted and on average 10 ft high, with occasional specimens over 25 ft. Trees marked from the 1912 expedition had not grown. It looks no different now from the 1970s description. Interestingly, we're in late autumn here, and there's not an acorn to be found on them or on the ground (I'd have surely grabbed a few). No young trees are spouting here, and with no acorns it seems unlikely any will soon.

Despite this, the wood continues as it has all these millennia and that may be one of the reasons it's such a mysterious place.

Legend says the woods are the dwelling place of the "wisthounds." These huge, black, red-eyed dogs are said to have a taste for human flesh (and souls) and prey on lost travelers out on the moors after sunset.

I can't speak to any mystical dogs of the devil. I _can_ tell you the Wistman's Wood on a dark October afternoon moves alternately between spiritual, beautiful, mysterious, and downright spooky.

I sat for some time on boulders just inside the wood, and as you look into the trees, they're sort of hypnotizing. There's so much to see, so many entangled branches and beautiful green mosses. You can tend to forget entirely what you're doing and the next thing you know, the sun has long set.

I tried hard to capture the Wistman's Wood in pictures, but I really don't think anything I got did it justice. I think as close as i can get is the video I took, that you can see clicking here. It's a place I will always treasure having the chance to spend quiet time in and an experience I won't forget.

FRIDAY-Widecombe-in-the-Moor

Widecombe-in-the-Moor was the place i'd originally wanted to stay in when we began planning our trip to Dartmoor. It's very charming, but also pretty touristy. Postbridge, where we're staying, is very very small (maybe 10 dwellings here) and nothing very touristy at all. We love it!




Ok, so Widecombe-in-the-Moor: very cool place. The old church, St. Pancras, is the main attraction there. This church, erected around 1540 is a gothic beauty with a very full graveyard next to it. Just the kind of Halloweeny stuff I love.




But if you want Halloweeny jackpot... St. Pancras is a really good one. The story goes: In 1683, on October 21st (just by chance the SAME DAY WE VISITED!!!) a dark rider on a black horse came into Dartmoor from the south that evening. He stopped at a tavern in Poundsgate for an ale. Locals watched the hooded figure toss back his ale and could hear it sizzle in his throat as it went down.

The dark man set his pewter tankard down on the bar, tossed the coins for his ale on the bar, and rode off. The barkeep and several patrons swore they saw cloven hooves for feet as he strode from the bar. When the barkeep looked down, she saw that the dark rider's coins had turned to dry leaves on the bar. The pewter tankard was still hot to the touch, and it left a ring on the bar that is still there today if you stop into the tavern in Poundsgate.

BUT THE STORY DOESN'T STOP THERE. (This story was about Widecombe-in-the-Moor, eh?) The black rider continued north as a very dark storm gathered about the moors surrounding the village of Widecombe. It's said his laughter was heard as he tore through town on his black steed, racing past St. Pancras church. At that moment, the fury of The Great Thunderstorm of 1683, October 21st, rained down destruction on the church. Lightning and ball lightning wrecked havoc on the building, blasting stones from the tower and reducing some to sand according to accounts of the time.

According to local legend, the thunderstorm was the result of a visit by the devil who had made a pact with a local card player and gambler called Jan Reynolds. The deal was that if the devil ever found him asleep in church, he could have his soul. Jan was said to have nodded off during the service that Sunday evening, with his pack of cards in his hand.

Four parishoners were killed, some died days later of their burns, and around 60 injured. Some had coins or keys melt in their purses. It's said that the dead still wander the streets of Widecombe-in-the-Moor on a dark October 21st night like tonight.

FRIDAY-Driving in Dartmoor

Jeri took on driving duties again today and did an awesome job. It's hard to remember to stay on the left side of the road in Dartmoor. The roads are so narrow in places that only one car can pass (and it's a tight squeeze at that). When you do see someone coming, your temptation, in your fear of crashing into them, is to veer right -- exactly the way you shouldn't go. It's a hard instinct to break.




I didn't think my picture here really captured just how narrow the stone walls and hedgerows make driving here. Click here to see some video of us making our way back from Widecombe-in-the-moor to Postbridge. What's amazing to me is the upkeep of these things. I wish I'd caught a picture of it, but they have machinery that drives along the side of the road and trims the sides and tops of the hedges as it goes. Smells really nice when they do it too.

Kudos to Jeri for getting us safely everywhere here!

WEDNESDAY-The Roman Baths

Arriving back in Bath, we took the city bus did some light shopping, and had an excellent lunch at Brown's Bistro. We also got some cute video of this fountain (pictured to the side) that has a little fountain at the bottom with a laughing angel that will squirt water in your face.

We moved on to the Roman Baths realizing we'd not even visited them yet!





The Baths were again that kind of humbling experience. So old and in operation for so long. There's one vantage point above the baths were you're looking at old roman construction, the 16th century Abbey, and buildings both modern and from the 1800s. It's a lot to process.







And then being right next to the baths themselves. They're still working (here's some video of them still working), they're still hot (steamy, see?), you could jump right in if it weren't for the guards coming for you if you did it. While there's been some work now and then to keep the baths from completely falling into ruin, the main bath just keeps on chugging along like it has for over well over 1000 years.




There's a sense of loss though. It's really a shame they fell out of use by people like you and I in the 1800s and became cloistered, preserved, separate from humanity. Imagine if you could still step in today, you'd be connecting with Romans, Celts, royalty, and common folk from the dawn of history.

MONDAY-Soho

After another day of some serious tramping about, we wanted a fun night spot for dinner. Jeri recommended Soho for the cool restaurants and people watching. Our taxi dropped us in the heart of Chinatown in Soho and we enjoyed some of the best Chinese food I've tasted.




Jeri ordered egg and chive dumplings. I was in the mood for some tried and true Chinese (yup, i passed up the opportunity for fried pig intestines and duck tongues in a Manchurian sauce) and ordered sweet and sour pork. We also got crispy duck moo shu for appetizer and some almond bubble tea.

The pork was tender slices of pork in a perfect tempura, lightly dressed with shaved green onion, shaved carrots, cilantro, and a lightly sweet ginger garlic sauce with mild sourness. Really incredible. The duck was a bit dry, but good enough for moo shu, and Jeri said her dumplings were tops.




We went for a walk in Chinatown afterwards. We saw some really cool cakes in a local bakery and lots of places I could have popped into for an Asian massage. Leaving Chinatown, we entered the red-light district ripe with cool bars, late-night coffee places, sex shops, and a very open-minded population. We had cocktails outdoors and enjoyed an awesome evening of crisp autumn air and people watching.