The castle of meh

Whenever someone mentioned the castle in Edinburgh, they did so with a breathless excitement that made me just a little nervous.

But I was pretty excited to go to the castle.

I shouldn’t have been.

It's a castle, yes, but not as you might imagine it. It's like if you ordered a castle on Wish.com, and when it arrived, you were slightly disappointed that it was...well, Edinburgh Castle.

There we were, in Scotland, land of haggis, kilts, and a monster in a lake that's probably just a log with delusions. The weather was doing that classic northern thing—sunny but cold. You know the kind of day when you think, "Ah, such a lovely day!" but step outside only to discover the Arctic has relocated to your neighborhood.

Edinburgh Castle sits high on a hill like it's, well, king of the hill, I guess. Everywhere you stand in Edinburgh, it looms, promising brooding grandeur and dark secrets. And if you’re like me (you know, old and getting older, hefty and getting heftier), you think, “Oh MAN is this going to be epic.” I persuaded Rick to go with me, and he was pretty keen on it, actually.

But then we got there. Lines. Such long lines. Just lines everywhere. I hadn’t seen lines like this since Disneyland. If I hadn’t bought tickets online, we might have made a quick course correction to a nearby pub where we could pull up Google images of the castle and just pretend we went while nursing a pint.

And did I mention that it costs an absolute mint to get in?

But, hey, every single person we’d met in Edinburgh seemed pretty stoked about the castle, so we figured it was worth a little patience. Hey, the Scottish Crown Jewels* are kept there. They're supposed to be the highlight, in fact. With, and I’m not kidding, the Stone of Destiny.

Of course, to see them, you wait in line to get into the castle. Then you get in another line to file up a spiral staircase. In fact, you stand for what feels like a geological epoch to see them. You might even be there long enough to get really, really irritated by a rambunctious Italian teenage girl who constantly and repeatedly bumps into you from behind, utterly oblivious to American requirements for personal space, where she and her only slightly less irritating girlfriends are also waiting with steadily growing excitement that, admittedly, has nowhere to be expended except by, well, constantly and repeatedly bumping into you and giggling just a little too much. I mean, I don’t know. That could happen.

And when you finally get to the little room with the crown jewels in a glass case, it's a bit like, “Oh. Look. There they are.” I've seen better bling at a discount jewelry sale.

As for the Stone of Destiny, I expected more. I can’t remember whether it’s the world’s most uncomfortable chair or the world’s most painful ottoman. [shrug] It’s basically a rock that's seen more action than most Hollywood stars, having been sat on, stolen, and schlepped around more than a well-used suitcase.

It barely mattered what I thought, though, because we were hustled in, led around the display case, and shuffled out in record time.

There's also the famed One o’Clock Gun.** It's like Edinburgh's daily jump scare. You're wandering around, minding your own business, maybe lost in thought, and then BAM, "Wake up! You're still in Scotland!"

St Margaret's Chapel is up there, too. It's tiny. Just bitty. You could fit it in your pocket. It's a bit like they started building an actual chapel and got distracted by something more fun to do.† "Nah, can't be bothered. This is big enough." But it is charming in a “we ran out of bricks and interest” kind of way.

Lest you think I was just in a mood when we went, I have been to other castles. So I feel like mine is an informed, if somewhat biased, opinion. Prague Castle, for instance. That's a castle that knows it's a castle. It's got swagger. Budapest? Their castle looks like it would be the lead in an action movie about a castle. But Edinburgh Castle is more like the castle's stand-in. It's there, it's doing its best, but it's not winning any Oscars.

Don't get me wrong, the views from the castle are stunning. You can see all of Edinburgh, which is great if you're into looking at things from high places. But inside, it's a bit like, “Here's a room. Here's another room. Oh, look, another room.”

In other words, Edinburgh Castle is like that movie you were super excited to see, and then you watch it, and it's...fine. It's the “I guess that was okay” of castles. It's got history, it's got character, but it's also got a lot of lines and a gun that likes to remind you what time it is.

So, if you're going to Edinburgh Castle, lower your expectations. Enjoy the views, brace for the gun, and maybe bring a book to read while standing in line. It's a castle, sure, but not as cool as you might like.

* More properly called “The Honours of Scotland.” I’m told they’re the oldest Crown jewels in Britain. How many do they have? The crown was made for James V, who first wore it in 1540. Mary Queen of Scots was the first to be crowned using the crown and scepter together in 1543. They were removed from the castle and hidden for most of the 1650s to keep them from Oliver Cromwell’s army. And then they were locked away in a trunk in 1707 following the Act of Union between England and Scotland. It wasn’t until Sir Walter Scott accidentally found them again more than a hundred years later that anyone remembered they existed.

** The capitalization is suspect here. But I abide by UK rules. Since 1861, the huge 105mm field gun has been fired every day at 1 in the afternoon—except on Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day. “Crowds gather to enjoy the spectacle—and the sound often surprises people on Princes Street below!” they say. Breathlessly.

† Probably it was 1 in the afternoon, and they had to Rochambeau to see who got to fire the cannon.