Layers and layers of history, battles, executions, sieges, heroes, rescues, Scotland vs. England, Catholic vs. Protestant. I note that Scotland is damatically more wealthy than Ireland (Dublin anyway) in terms of the public buildings. Maybe because Scotland was more or less peaceably under Imperial rule for past centuries, while Ireland was always fighting and being suppressed.
I had forgotten how beautiful the castle is. Some mountains in the western US I look at and imagine a human or magical presence--a fortress on this crag, or a high-placed monastery in that pass--but Edinburgh Castle is the human/magical presence on the craggy landscape. I remember when we first came to Edinburgh when C. was three years old. He likes the soldiers, the cannons, the guns and the swords, heading like an arrow under the ropes to the short swords (just his size) hung in rows on the walls of the Great Hall. He couldn't believe that he was not allowed to have just one, there were so many, so obviously meant for him to have. But he wasn't much impressed with the buildings until we took him down to the playground in the park at the base of the castle. He ran around and played, and then the mountain caught his attention. He looked up, up, and up.
"Did that mountain just grow there?" he said, "with that castle on top?"
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