Traveling Back in Time and Seeking a Sea Monster

Days 28 and 29, 2023 North Atlantic Adventure

Thursday and Friday, June 8-9, 2023; Invergordon and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Just a few feet under the festive crowds on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile lies a world of dankness, darkness and disease. I spent an hour today exploring Mary King’s Close, venturing hundreds of years back in time to a warren of alleys, stairways and rooms. Unfortunately, no cameras were allowed on the tour, beyond a photo of a model.

First of all, I kept stumbling over the name, in part because the shore excursion materials leave off the apostrophe, advertising Mary Kings Close. Yes, punctuation matters. And Close is a noun for the old-town alleys and lanes. Today you see these narrow passageways every 20 feet or so off High Street, also known as the Royal Mile. Mary King was a widowed merchant, and eventually the passageway on which she lived took on her name.

At one time these narrow lanes were open to the sky – as much as a lane with buildings as high as 14 stories can be. Now they are below ground, as buildings have been built over them.

Our guide told us about Mary and other residents, about the unhealthy practice of tossing the contents of the family toilet bucket out on the street, and about the Black Death plague of 1645 (the year after Mary’s death). We ducked our heads (okay, at 5-foot-3 I didn’t really need to duck) as we moved between chambers.

This was my first visit to Edinburgh, but fortunately it won’t be my last, as we will be back in three weeks. The ship anchors at the suburb of South Queensferry, so a tour seemed to be an easy way to get to the old town, with Edinburgh Castle overlooking the city and the Royal Mile stretching down to Holyrood Palace. We had a brief walking tour of just a few blocks after touring Mary King’s Close, and I only saw the castle briefly from the bus window.

We did see the gravesite of John Knox, a Scottish reformation minister. He insisted on a burial at St. Giles’ Cathedral, but when the cemetery was moved, his grave was left behind. Today all that marks the approximate place in spot 23 of the parking lot is a stone.

I took a minute for a selfie at Johnston Terrace. I know some of my ancestors came to the United States long ago from Scotland, Ireland and England. When I have some non-traveling time with fast free Internet service, I’ll follow up on my grandmother’s research. For now, I just collect photos with our surname.

We have continued to have sunny days, but yesterday and today had a chill in the air. Yesterday in Invergordon, the port near Inverness, my excursion included an hour-long boat trip on Loch Ness. I knew I would want to be outside on the boat — just in case I saw Nessie, the mythical Loch Ness monster. (I wasn’t a true believer, though. I didn’t bring my super-zoom DSLR camera.)

As it turned out, the combination of a thin silk underwear top, a knit long-sleeved shirt and my unlined all-weather jacket was just right, once I added my woolen headband to keep my ears warm.

Beyond the boat ride, it wasn’t the best tour I’ve taken. We had a nice drive through the countryside and made such good time that we just sat around for almost an hour and half waiting for our boat ride.

We cruised up the beautiful lake – long, narrow and very deep – as we listened to a recorded travelog about its features, history and legends. At the ruins of Urquhart Castle we made a brief stop for one-way passengers while hearing about its centuries of raids and battles. By the time our tour had ended, we left with a basic knowledge of the history of the Highlands of Scotland.

The description advertised a brief tour of Inverness, a town “brimming with historical landmarks, including the Gothic-style Town Hall, Inverness Castle and the Tollbooth Steeple,” but we didn’t see any of them. Too bad that wasted 90 minutes earlier wasn’t put to better use. I’ll be back in Invergordon in a few weeks and will probably just walk around town a bit.

After a day at sea tomorrow, we will return to Rotterdam for the end of this 14-day British Isles cruise. While most of the passengers disembark and another full load joins us, I plan to have a nice lunch with my friends who live in the Netherlands. It’s such fun to get to spend time with them.