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The Kid, Rachel and I went to Mary King's Close in Edinburgh today. It's extremely interesting but a little too "theme park" for my liking. I wish I'd gone when it was less theatrical tbh.

For those not familiar with Auld Reekie, Edinburgh is packed with "vennels", "wynds" and "closes" which are really small passageways between old 8 to 10 storey high buildings which have been flats, houses and shops since the beginning of time ( slight exaggeration ).

Mary King's is especially interesting because it was used as the foundation for council buildings in the 19th century and they were pretty much preserved in aspic as a result. It's pretty spooky down there although the play acting makes it less so, which may be the point I guess.

Well worth a visit if only to get a true idea of how dirty, jampacked, dark, noisy and disease ridden cities were back then. Most interesting thing, apart from the plasterboard made from the ashes of plague victims ( I kid you not ), was one stat. Edinburgh was a walled city 1 mile square and it had 30,000 citizens in it. All that noise and smoke and ... well... poop. Makes you realise how lucky you are.

This image is of a close right next ( I've marked it but can't remember if it's that exact close, but whatever it's somewhere um... close...) to Mary King's and is something I always find fascinating about Edinburgh. It's not the postcard views that draw me, it's the slivers of the city you see through these gaps, slices of the Scott Monument and the castle from every angle. It's a visually fascinating place.