City Walks: Edinburgh, Scotland - Historic City Center, Royal Mile, Exploring the Scottish Capital

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good morning Walkers we are on top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh
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Scotland on April 23rd at about seven a little after seven in the morning
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over here where the sun is rising over the first of fourth and to the right
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over here is Hollywood Park and Arthur's Peak or
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Arthur's seat I'm sorry in the background and if we look off to our right
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we see the city we are on Calton Hill as I might have mentioned
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and we are going to walk back through the city and do a little exploring
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um this pillared Monument is the National
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Monument this is an experimental project of mine
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just to see what people might be interested in since we're traveling around Europe for
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a year as a family we are going to be going to a lot of interesting places already have been
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Ashley and I thought I might try and take you guys with me
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this tower on the left is the Nelson Monument
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I will try to point out the things that I know and be as accurate as possible and maybe be
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quiet when I don't really know
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I hope you'll subscribe I hope to do several of these we head to France next
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um and I hope you'll ask questions and make comments and help me make this a better better
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Channel I can already tell the audio might be a little wind blown
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although it's late April it's pretty brisk this morning had a great sunrise
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and and despite the riskness everything is green leaves are out
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the yellow flowers up here on the right are gorse and it's a really thorny prickly kind of
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bush but it sure is pretty it's all over Arthur's seat
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Calton Hill is apparently the seat of the Scottish government there's the new
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Parliament building over here somewhere which is actually I think
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100 or 200 years old and not where the current Parliament meets there's the St Andrews house which
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is a part of the bureaucracy government offices
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it's hard for me to keep my attention on the phone make sure
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my exposure is okay
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foreign
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try to find a happy medium this is Saint Andrews house over here to
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the left
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which is impressive
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it also has a distinctly fascist look to my eye
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um it opened the day after the beginning of World War II
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laughs so we are going to go down Waterloo place
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to the National Scottish Museum
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of art or portrait Museum I can't remember what it's called but we're going to pass on our left a big
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dark soot stained Monument to the Scots
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it's pretty nice being out this time of morning later in the day it just gets wall-to-wall people here
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this is a UNESCO world heritage site the pretty much the entire city
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and it is very popular with tourists like myself
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there are lots of old Alleyways and a lot of stone
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buildings and narrow narrow places it's really kind of neat
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foreign
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statue on the right is to Willington at least that's what it says on there
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to the left we can see the uh High Street the buildings on this side
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of High Street the Royal mile
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coming up here is the Scott Monument
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[Music] and also between the Royal Mile and us
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down in that Valley is the train station wave early train station
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foreign
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walking here look right and then look left
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[Music]
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well maybe that's a monument to Sir Walter Scott
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or something now
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off over here is the castle Edinburgh Castle
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and we're gonna walk up to that a little bit later but we're not going to go in
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because it costs money
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and over here is the art museum
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it's got some really impressive work in there also not gonna go in there it doesn't open till 10 I think but
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it is free which is nice the National Gallery um
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and they've got the guys and El grecos and a bunch of other
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really impressive works of art and impressive artists
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thank you
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we're gonna go over here and take a look down here where the train tracks come
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Waverly station and you have these lovely Gardens
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Park areas
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Let's uh head up towards the Royal mile
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foreign
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so
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okay I'm gonna need a coffee soon
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so I'm gonna go up this way
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we really are here at a great time of year the flowers are absolutely amazing
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foreign
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trash is a city
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this bar on the Corner Pub
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is Deacon Brody's Tavern and Deacon Brody apparently
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it wasn't in better gambler who ended up
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becoming a bit of a thief and a murder to fund his gambling
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and on whom Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was apparently
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based on Robert Louis Stevenson I think is who wrote that
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now we are on the Royal mile and we're headed up to Edinburgh Castle
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if I can get out of the road
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well yesterday I recorded for a long time
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hold on they are filming The Avengers one of the Avengers
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films here and we've been setting up all kinds of film
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equipment up here which is kind of neat but it's also
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a bit of a cluster
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oh
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foreign
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Edinburgh Castle doesn't look as impressive from here but
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still pretty impressive and if I've got my history correct the only time it's ever been taken by
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enemy forces enemy in quotation marks was when Robert the Bruce
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climbed up the north wall with some people
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but you should probably Google that and check my history and let me know what you think or if I'm right on that
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there's like five different museums in there it's really kind of an impressive
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and compact uh Place Building whatever
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the views are pretty cool too it's a great place to visit
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now I've got to stop for a second tie my shoe and turn off some apps so my
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battery lasts longer okay we're tied up and hopefully that'll
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make a battery last longer this is all experimental I guess I mentioned yesterday I got quite a bit done
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uh and only burned up about 10 of my battery but today I'm recording in 4k instead of 1080.
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and that may be making a difference so if we run out I apologize now off to
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the left is Arthur's seat again we saw that at the very beginning
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over there there's some green area and that I believe is The Meadows
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and then down here right in there there's a square in there called
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the grass market and that's where they used to sell cows and stuff and I believe the road through there is cold
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how Gate Road it's down that way
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to the cow gate
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the dynamic range on this phone is not great so I'm having to make a
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adjustment here between
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the sky and the buildings here's one of the dozens of lighting trucks that are
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pulled up here in The Old City at various points in time they also have a bunch of cranes with Lighting on them
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and faux lamp posts security boxes and police boxes
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it's kind of crazy the vehicles they bring up here
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narrow tiny streets wouldn't even want to come up here in a car but people are bringing up these
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giant tour buses
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rectangular taxi up to the castle if you're not as mobile as others
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[Music]
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there are a lot of wool outlets and wool
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houses here Royal mile
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okay this is really chewing through my battery I'm assuming it's at 4K that's the only
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thing that's different so I switched it back down to 1080. sorry about that
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um it's we are going down George the sixth Bridge
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there's a couple interesting things down here
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and it's still too early to get coffee it seems like almost all the coffee shops
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don't open till eight or later which seems like it's a little
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off the point
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music] foreign
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[Music] as I mentioned is a UNESCO world heritage site pretty much the whole city
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uh and at least the old part of the city and it's obviously a tourist Mecca
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but up here is one of the most touristed areas
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in Edinburgh and it has nothing to do with history it is actually has everything to do with
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Harry Potter this is the elephant house where apparently
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uh JK Rowling did a fair amount of writing although uh I'm not so sure how much she did I
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think the later books uh there's another cafe coffee house
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over by the university that she did a lot of their first writing book writing the first book because
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um I guess her brother-in-law owned the restaurant upstairs or the cafe or something I we took a walking Harry
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Potter tour which is free you tipped the guide it was great a lot of fun for the kids and us
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uh but he was that's what he was telling us and this statue up here
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is also quite visited and photographed the most photographed statue in in
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Edinburgh according to Melinda and her sources and it is great fires Bobby
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and you can Google the whole story but basically this is right outside of greyfire's Kirk
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and back in the grave robbing days um
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there was a night Watchman and he got a guard dog named Bobby
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and unfortunately the Watchman died two years after he bought his dog and the
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dog came and stayed on his grave every day and um
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the law at the time said any stray dogs had to be killed but since he was so loyal
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and so famous they made him a citizen so we'll duck back here
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just to stick our heads in gates are now the gates are open but this is the gray Friar Kirk
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and this is also where there are several names that we're not
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going to go visit you can come see the church um uh that JK Rowling used was inspired by
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including McGonagall a terrible poet renowned for being terrible and Tom
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Riddle over here is the Scottish Museum
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which has a lot of interactive things for the kids we just ducked our heads in there before a tour and we're going to
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go back but it's really impressive and the outside
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is a modern take on something
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which is I don't know it's not too bad it's gotten a lot of criticism I think but the inside
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is also it's multiple facets of this building and the inside is uh really
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spectacular and there's just it's just packed with a lot of stuff so if you do go
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get a chance to go I would highly recommend giving it several hours and there's a
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lot of tactile experiences interactive experiences for the kids
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um so [Music] there's that
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[Music]
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[Music]
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morning [Music]
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foreign [Music]
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[Music]
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take note of the red telephone boxes
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they're still around a lot of them turned into uh Wi-Fi hotspots
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and ATM machines were sold off
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so we are coming back up to the Royal mile [Music]
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and we're going to make a right find some coffee
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[Music]
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now this statue up here [Music] is
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despite my efforts convince people of the fact it's not a Brit Hume
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David Hume the philosopher up here on the right is I think it's
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Saint Giles church and you'll see a ton
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of film gear lighting stuff
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from The Avengers morning
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foreign
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a lot of these side Alleyways look a little sketchy cold
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closest this is Advocates close I assume there were lawyers down there
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but they're just little Alleyways and foot paths that lead off the main drag
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here there's dozens of them
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there is our coffee destination as every city in Europe or pretty much
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anywhere in the world seems like has multiple
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Starbucks Cafe Nero I think is a UK
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chain at least that's the first place I've seen them is here we're gonna duck in here and see if we
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can grab some coffee
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quick review of church again
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oh and this is interesting we took a walking tour a free walking tour through sandemans again it's free but you need
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to tip and apparently this used to be where they would tie up the
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Catholics or the Protestants and they throw Aggies out them for five hours
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I guess things were a little bit different back then
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anyway I'll be right back gonna grab some coffee okay I have got my coffee
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and a little bit of blood sugar and let's see what else we can see
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so seriously these closes are every
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just every few yards here's the Covenant close which seems more like a garbage
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close this is Burnett's close
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this is Belle's wind or wind
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here's the assembly close
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tour shop there's that Stephen laws close
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of course your ubiquitous Starbucks over here this is kind of a neat little
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road called cockerman Street look for that in your Avengers film
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this is kind of a fun little square down here
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and then this is a major road called North Bridge or at least that part of it
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is and that leads back over the train tracks uh
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towards the Wellington statue I believe that's way down there
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um it's a nice view in that Valley where the trade tracks run
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uh used to be the loch Nour or norlock
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and apparently it was pretty scummy and they it was sort of the open sewer
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of a city and they used to dunk witches there
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so I like to think they drained it because it got all filled up with witches
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[Music] you may hear
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uh seagulls calling every once in a while and that's because we are as you may remember from this morning we are
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actually walking straight downhill uh towards the first of fourth the first
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being a bay and fourth meaning Where the River fourth comes into the ocean
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and we are headed down towards hollyrood
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thank you
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now I keep being fooled because other cities
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these roads are basically converted into pedestrian malls but that is definitely not the
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case here and on the Royal mile and I keep wanting to walk in the middle
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of the street because it's a better View I keep
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just getting run over
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Okay so down here kind of see where we've been
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that is St Andrew's house just to the left of this building here
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see a bit of
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Kelton Hill there's the Nelson monument and of course the uh
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National Monument the pillars just right there in the center
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but back up here the way we came
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down there I mentioned calgate earlier I believe that is or that's calgate Road I'm not sure if
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that's the actual cow gate down there it's where they used to bring the cattle in
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to the grass Market to sell grass Market was also the place where
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they had the public hangings like you do
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let's see if I can fix exposure a little bit better
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across the street because I think
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get a better View down here
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I'm just going to let the sky blow out so we can see the buildings
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[Music]
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[Music] well that sign over there
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says Cannon gate on the Royal mile
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so I don't know if that was [Music] uh the gate for cannons or
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the uh [Music] they built a wall three meter no seven
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meter seven meter tall wall around the city I think in the 1500s after
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the Battle of flooding and I think it's called the flooding wall of the flooding something or there
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um as a because the English were marching northwards to
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take the city [Music]
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standard UK greeting seems to be higher [Music]
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so I say hi yeah so people don't know I'm not Scottish [Music]
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now this is the what is that that's the tollbooth gate
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um or the toll gate hold on
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I kind of like it because [Music] it's like something out of a
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Warner Brothers Studio Tour something I mean this is what Harry Potter stuff Hogwarts stuff looks like right
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but it's uh to the best of my knowledge that is people architecture at its best
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and quite frankly Edinburgh is full of that kind of stuff a lot of
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Old Stone Construction it's just massive and kind of cold
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looking but strange because the Scottish people are so nice and so friendly on the whole
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this church is amazing not because of the church but because of these trees
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they're just gorgeous and full of color
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[Music]
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[Music]
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foreign
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[Music]
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[Music]
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Palace and Abby remains of the Abbey I guess as well as the current Scottish
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Parliament which has this very modern architecture which is
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pretty interesting
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[Music] and there's a lot of there are a lot of
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questions we had to look this up what the Scottish Parliament actually has
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a sovereignty over or jurisdiction over I think it's like education and
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it's like three or four things education police something else
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but Hollywood I guess is the Royal residence in Scotland
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butts up to a giant green space which is beautiful
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and it's right next to I think it's Hollywood Park where Arthur's seat is
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which again we saw at the beginning
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see how close we can get up to this is the uh the wall on the right I don't know if I've been showing it but
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of of the Parliament building and it's very creatively done
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or what I assume is a blast wall um
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[Music] off to the left are some of the gardens [Music]
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I'm gonna go up here and see how close I can get
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or at least close enough to show
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the palace here
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morning
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can I see despite the sun there
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above in front I guess the yellow gorse is the Crags area which is I guess west of
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Arthur's seat which we'll see in a moment [Music]
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duck over here and uh
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it's kind of like these pools that are all out in front of the parliament buildings a nice little Park
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very calming guess that's appropriate for Parliament
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I'm gonna cross over
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lots of flowers Out In Bloom right now
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[Music] Garden here I think they actually serve
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tea and such in there Hollywood Palace
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pay to get in but nevertheless
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[Music]
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all right [Music]
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sorry to tell with this lens but those cracks are pretty tall
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if you can make out people walking just above the course there's a trail just a flash up there
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um and that's not even as tall as Arthur's seat
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which isn't that tall but it's deep you can see some people up there
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foreign
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[Music]
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[Music] go over
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show y'all are their seat and call it that's pretty good performance I think we'll see how the
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video looks [Music]
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good flowers
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[Music]
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oh I think from here we need one hour [Music]
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I'm so quiet [Music]
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I'm trying to get my exposure down a little bit
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up I guess [Music]
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it's a beautiful evening [Music]
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foreign [Music]
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so off to the right up here here's a valley you know to the left of that Valley
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I don't know if you can really see it but right about there's an old ruin of some sort
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and off to the right we'll see Arthur's seat in just a moment
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[Music]
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because
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there you see it just over this Ridge line right in there [Music]
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I don't know if you can make out the people up there it's about 30 people [Music]
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and it's a bit of a scramble to get up there good path but
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steep you also gotta be it's really kind of cool that they have this
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giant Park [Music] it's really wild
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as well as you can expect in a major city and you can climb all over it
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I guess we'll go up here to the pond since it's just up here
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over to the left is a giant open space as well and then
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over there is the Hollywood Palace that Tower up on the hill is Kelton Hill
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where we started [Music]
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there are a lot of joggers in this park and they all seem to run really fast
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[Music]
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a guy over there doing burpees which of course it's a terrible idea
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because they're horrible and that's the ruin
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I have to look that up go over here to the pond
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the lock
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I think we're gonna come out about [Music] is it 35 or 40 minutes on this
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I think I had about 30 35 on the phone full charge on the gimbal battery
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Lord knows how many uh getting some videos taken out on the
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phone I guess it doesn't really matter
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[Music]
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well it's coming out a little bit [Music]
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it's about a dozen or so swans that live here I guess they live here
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not supposed to feed them but I think they get fed anyway [Music]
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it's just nice in here [Music] the light the clouds
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the gorse The Greenery the birds and it's quiet in the middle of the
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giant City now that we've gotten away from the major crowds
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there's a heron too look at that see what we can see over here about
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these swans [Music] oh
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a couple of scop and there's the mallards [Music]
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[Music] all right well
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that's not a bad place for time lapse either holy crap
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well uh

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City Walks: Edinburgh, Scotland - Historic City Center, Royal Mile, Exploring the Scottish Capital

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