Destination 4 - Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, Edinburgh

Scotland is a land of castles. There are have been over 2000 of them, but Edinburgh's, towering above the city on its forbidding rock, sets the pattern, even if little of its medieval fortification remains. It even has a couple of ghosts, a piper and a headless drummer. The castle rock is the hard basalt plug of an extinct volcano that resisted later glacial erosion, leaving an almost impregnable crag with only one approach route - the ultimate safe refuge. It was known  to the ancient Scots as Din Eidyn until it fell to the Angles in AD 638, when it took the English name Edinburgh.

David I moved his capital here from Dunfermline in the 12th century, giving the castle royal status. Only one structure remains from this period, the little Romanesque chapel dedicated to his mother on the summit, which is the city's oldest building. When the Earl of Moray's forces captured the castle from the English in 1314, by scaling the precipitous north face to rock , it was the only building that was spared, and Robert the Bruce later left money and instruction for its repair. The monstrous cannon that sits outside the chapel arrived in 1457 as a gift  from Philip Duke of Burgundy. It fired balls weighing 150kg for up to 3km, but really its bark was worse than its bite: firing generated so much heat that it could be used only few times a day, and its was barely manoeuvrable on a battlefields. From 1540 Mons Weg was saved for ceremonial use, until the barrel burst in 1681when James Duke of Albany - a rather had bad omen for the future king, who managed to reign for only three years. 

The 15th century saw the creation of royal apartments and the great hall, although after the royal family moved down the royal Mike to Holyrood  Palace the castle was mostly used as an arsenal. But Mary Queen of Scots took refuge here to give birth, in a tiny wood-panelled  room whose panels are vividly painted to commemorate the events: before her baby was a year old she was forced to abdicate and he became James VI, later James I of England. In all, the castle suffered 13 attacks, culminating in the ' Lang Siege' when the garrison held out for nearly two years in support of the deposed Mary Queen of Scots. Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745 was the last to test defences  - the castle held out easily - but in the face of the Napoleonic threat the vast New Barracks was built in 1799, large enough to hold 600 troops. In the event the castle never needed to defend itself against the French - its vaults held prisoners of war instead. 

Soldier still guard the castle, but the besieging hordes turned into tourist as Victorians went wild for 'auld'  Scotland. Walter Scott dashingly searched the castle for the crown jewels and masterminded its tartan-and-bagpipes image. With gatehouse and great hall restored in baronial style and the One O'clock Gun set up on the ramparts, the annual Military Tattoo on the Esplanade has cemented Edinburgh's status as Scotland's top castle. 

Military Tattoo 

Edinburgh Castle

Edinburgh Castle