Edinburgh: A grey city full of colour
“You have to go to Arthur’s Seat. Do it in the morning before breakfast and the view’s amazing. And the castle’s incredible. There’s a cannon that fires every day at one o’clock.”
She smiled.
“Oh, and the Harry Potter Café! I think it’s called Elephant House? It’s always rammed, but just to say you’ve been, right?”
She was right about the name, and we saw it, but we didn’t go in. In the end, we didn’t do any of the things that anyone suggested. It wasn’t deliberate or to be contrary. Our visit wasn’t a long one and it just turned out that there was always something else to do.
And in the end, my experience of Edinburgh wasn’t what I’d expected or what anyone had told me to expect.
Sure, the clouds and the stone were grey and the architecture was austere and impressive and there was a certain ‘look’ to the whole place. I’d watched enough repeats of Rebus to expect that. I’d heard, too, that there was a feel to the city; a way the people are with visitors, and how the history makes it all feel so solid. That was true too.
What I wasn’t expecting was the layer of contemporary culture on top of the old; not detached or alien, but building seamlessly on what had been before. It was in the art, the music, and the atmosphere; the way that the Scots have celebrated their artists and memorialised their poets and writers above all others. The city is built on creativity and imagination, and they run through the place.
Instead of Nelson, the memorial is to Scott. And instead of the Dukes of Wellington or Marlborough, the pubs and bars are named after Burns and Conan Doyle.
It was the art that distracted us from the things others suggested.
We spent a morning with the permanent exhibitions at the Modern Art Galleries (there are two, separated by a road: go to both). Then it was the National Gallery of Scotland, and Mark Wallinger at the Fruitmarket.
It’s interesting to watch people react to art.
Some walk past, spending no time with each piece. Other can spend an hour or more with an exhibit. Neither is right or wrong, and you see their eyes turn works over and over, reading something all their own.
My girlfriend lost herself in a painting that merged Raphael’s Madonna with the dome of the Pantheon and a mushroom cloud to produce a criticism of war. I was more interested in the Stairwell Project, and sat in one of the wheelchairs that’s stored underneath it, down by the toilets, fully reclined to look up through the three stories to the painted ceiling above. You can’t focus on all the layers at once and, at first, it’s not clear that you’re looking at anything much. It’s like the rocks at the bottom of a clear pool. You see the stones, sure, but it’s easy to forget the water.
We went around together and agreed on some pieces. But even then, even when one of us would turn to each other and say something as considered as, ‘This is really cool,’ and point vaguely at the piece in question (I never claimed to be an art critic), I don’t think we quite took the same thing from our experiences.
In Modern Art One, there’s a piece that describes the artist’s mood day-by-day, with ticket stubs and prescriptions and receipts and pictures – the things that affected him – layed out in rows. We both loved it, and it was big enough to absorb half an hour or more all by itself. It celebrated the mundanity of life and the contrast of ‘normality’ with peaks of joy or fear. It was honest and simple and inspiring and reassuring and, perhaps, a bit disturbing. It was the opposite of an Instagram feed.
I said something like that as we moved on, adding how paradoxical it was that something so curated could feel so unfiltered.
She agreed, but then gave her own interpretation about how actions superseded appearance; how artefacts and words could replace expressions or the wrinkles or scars that you see on a conventional self-portrait.
That’s why I’m not going to bore you anymore with a breakdown of what I saw. It was my experience and even if you’d been there with me yours would have been different.
All I’d say is this: go to Edinburgh. I recommend it. Go and eat and drink in its cafés; listen to languages and rhythms that fill its streets. Walk about and see the art that’s there, in the galleries and all around, and let it say the things it can say only to you.
When I was there, I didn’t follow the advice I was given, so take mine if you like. Or take my friends’ and go up the hill. When you’re there, you’ll know what’s right and you’ll be pulled to where you should be.
The one piece of advice I did heed was to go in the first place, and that I cannot repeat enough. If you don’t go, you’ll never know, and only in the going will you know what a place can be to you.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes.












