Edinburgh fails to excite; construction rains on Burns’ parade
Written by Roger Holliday Claudia Fischer | | news@toledofreepress.comEDINBURGH, SCOTLAND — Edinburgh seems to have got it horribly wrong. And the tourism boffins must have their tartans in a real twist.
After spending what amounts to a king’s ransom on “Homecoming 2009” — an International marketing promotion to celebrate the 250th birthday of Robbie Burns, Scotland’s best-loved poet — the city fathers (and presumably mothers) chose this very same year to begin digging up large parts of central Edinburgh for the installation of a new tram system.
Princes Street landmark department store and Sir Walter Scott's monument.
So Princes Street, the city’s principle thoroughfare and world-famous shop-op with retail stores on one side and museums, parks, statues and castle views on the other, is now an ugly closed-to-traffic jumble of jackhammers, hard hats, “dozers, red-and-white barriers … and banners thanking local citizenry for their patience and proclaiming, ‘Edinburgh Trams – Arriving 2011.’”
In the meantime, traffic is being seriously diverted. Buses, by the hundreds, take novel routes. Noise, dirt, dust and smells reign over the city’s major streets. The routines of shoppers and sightseers alike are being disrupted. And previously elegant and gracious landmarks are ruined or obscured.
Of course, “Homecoming 2009” is being promoted all over Scotland, not just in Edinburgh … but it does seem a great shame that this all-important section of Burns’ parade route is being unnecessarily rained upon.
We travel to Edinburgh fairly often, and even in the best of times, the city presents — to us, at least — a somewhat dour and monochromatic picture. For one thing, it’s a difficult place to photograph even on a sunny day. Everything seems so gray and overweight, like granite architecture on steroids, from its chunky fortified 11th-century castle high up on the brooding Castle Rock to its columned museums and art galleries, overwrought statue of Sir Walter Scott, looming cathedrals, palaces and the strange, highly controversial new Parliament building.
Edinburgh Castle oversees central city construction.
Edinburgh’s other major tourist venue, the Royal Mile, also has its gloomy, tacky side, with shop after shop filled to the sashes and eaves with kilts and bonnets, scarves and rugby kits … and Tartanized everything.
Some of the tourist offerings that line the street also seem better suited to the seaside resorts of a Blackpool or a Brighton than to this more serious and cerebral city: “The Witchery” and “The Dungeons” to “3-D Loch Ness,” “Ghosts and Gore,” “Murder and Mystery” and, of course, a “Whisky Heritage Centre.”
No doubt this is a rather unfair and jaundiced view of a grand old city renown for its banking and lawyering, its medicine and its culture and perhaps has more to do with our current mood on a cold, drizzly, windy March day than with reality.
And by summer, everything will have brightened up. Surely.
Bagpipers will skirl from every corner. Culture vultures will be taking in the famous tattoos and the theater productions, the music and the art exhibitions. And T-shirted tourists by the thousand will be dodging the orange barrels on Princes Street and making their trek up the Royal Mile, gobbling up kilts and clobber before tucking into an obligatory plate of haggis, neeps and tatties and knocking back frothy pints of McEwan’s or Belhaven Best bitter at one of the many pubs.
We also know from our previous visits that Edinburgh does indeed have many delightful aspects, if you have the time, energy and inclination to look for them, like the vast swaths of parkland high above the city — Queen’s Park — where “Chariots of Fire” hero Eric Liddell did his training runs prior to the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. Like the green and gorgeous flower-filled pocket parks that divide tree-lined Georgian terraces and a particularly intriguing maze of cobbled alleys behind Princes Street filled with fascinating boutiques, classy restaurants and traditional pubs.
Scottish seagull watches Princes Street tramway construction.
Then there’s Leith, just a couple of miles away, with its newly developed docklands, good restaurants, permanent dockage for the Royal Yacht Britannia and more Scotch whisky tasting opportunities.
But for us, Edinburgh always feels a bit old-fashioned. A bit old lace. A bit Auld Lang Syne, as the poet says.
But maybe, just maybe, when the state-of-the-art trams with the bendy bits in the middle finally arrive in 2011, they’ll help to kick-start the clean up and modernization of this grand old lady.
E-mail travel columnists Roger Holliday and Claudia Fischer at RogerHolliday@wcnet.org.
We are grateful that you won’t be returning to Edinburgh, please stay away from our beautiful city rich in culture with some fantastic architecture!!
This comment was posted on April 3rd, 2009 at 4:50 amBy the way what is the history of Toledo…..? I believe we cannot expect more from uncultured Americans who wouldn’t know history if it was to come up and bite them on the behind….!!
It is rare indeed for a travel writer to speak the truth. The Scots often use the word ‘dreich’ (meaning dull or dreary) when referring to that city.
The remark about the kitsch ‘3 – d loch Ness’ junk sellers has often been commented on by locals as well as tourists, and is indeed a blight on that city. The decision to start the tram project was against majority public opinion, and even the National Government, the majority of Scots were against the whole project.
Despite the delusions of granduer ,the city has always been seen by many Scots as Anglicized ,peel behind the facade and you see very little of Scotland. For instance unlike the rest of Scotland ,it never came under Gaeldom meaning the Gaelic language and culture( ie Scots) never took hold there and historically it
never figured in the great events that shaped the country – eg the Wars of independence.
All in all,it it was a refreshingly fair,accurate and balanced article.
Eric , Renfrewhire, Scotland (Alba).
This comment was posted on April 5th, 2009 at 2:45 pmEdinburgh has no granite worth mentioning in its built environment. If the writer finds the city difficult to photograph, he may want to consider taking lessons from those who have done so successfully, starting with Hill and Adamson. “Homecoming” is a controversial concept here and certainly no reason for holding up a major infrastructure project like the trams.
This comment was posted on April 7th, 2009 at 8:51 amI visit Edinburgh regularly once a year to exhibit at the Antiquarian Book Fair.
This comment was posted on May 4th, 2009 at 9:05 amI too found the place a chaotic mess this year and question the wisdom of opting for a tram system when the development of highly efficient battery-powered buses is imminent.
I too find the architecture gloomy – “buildings on steroids” (I wish I’d coined that phrase!)
The reason I return so eagerly year after year is the PEOPLE – they are just delightful; so hospitable, friendly and genuine. (and the crack in the Oxford Bar is endlessly entertaining).
But there is traditionally an exception needed to prove a rule and Gaby Milione seems ‘exceptionally’ well suited to the role. Were I to make an unforgivable assumption I would have said that her name indicated a rather weak claim to being Scottish. I’ll not pursue that but rather point out her unforgivable, indeed outrageous, assumption that Roger Holliday is “…an uncultured American who wouldn’t know history if it was to come up and bite them on the behind”. For the record Roger Holliday is English, with family connections to European society; educated at one of the better-known English public schools; fluent in French and German through working several years in Germany and Belgium; and one of a small group among my friends whom I consider genuinely well-read. I suggest that an apology is in order (though perhaps unlikely!)
Fantastic article!
I have watched my shop devalue by 36% and suffered the pangs and woes of a truly non-Zurich
type project. As a tax payer I have a few questions…
- UNESCO STATUS… will it be lost?
- RUBBISH STRIKE… streets are full if it? Edin now stinks… It’s truly auld reekie!
- WHY FOCUS ON EDWARDIAN/GEORGIAN/VICTORIAN EDINBURGH? Have you seen Missoni’s New Hotel… St James Centre? Grass Mkt Govt blds? etc?
Edinburgh is not Prague, not Krakow, Not Granada!
They are worthy of UNESCO status. Edin is not.
If you wish to see a beautiful city visit Dubrovnik, Prague,
Have you seen the tram design? OH MY GAWD!
Learn from Zurich…
Install old-fashioned trams at half the cost!
With festival about to hit, the City is a disgrace and has lost it’s charm.
Is it montone, monochrome, mono-cultured?
Look at parliament bldgs. Budgeted at 40 Mill, it cost 400 Mill +!!! Trams cost???
I wish I was a Council Planner or a politician whom could plead to keep the City’s charm! The last thing I wish for this grey construction site is to see a post neo-decadent tram waving its way through a post neo decadent pseudo Victorian City.
learn from Zurich or Dubrovnik…PLEASE!!!
This comment was posted on July 27th, 2009 at 3:23 pm