Winter stroll along Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland

Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you have a wonderful Hogmanay in a few days!

I trust you have all been enjoying the holidays with your loved ones and not eating and drinking too much!

There have been lots of walking trips for me this month.

We have had some glorious days in between the drab dreich weather too!

So although many posts for Winter is coming 🥶🥶🥶 - and with it the Worldmappin Winter Challenge 🥳🥳 are based around Christmas markets and cold weather, this entry will focus on some mild weather to kick off the winter festivities in Edinburgh's Princes St Gardens which run parallel to the main street which is Princes St.

Back in the days when the castle was lived in and the old town was the only part of Edinburgh, the gardens were infact submerged under water and sewage as there was no sanitation in those days.

We are starting at the west end of Princes St gardens close to Lothian Road.

To put into footballing context. The west of the town is maroon and Heart of Midlothian or Hearts for short territory and the east where we finish is green and Hibernian or Hibs territory. I won't say which religions they used to be!

Ho Ho Ho you can't have a winter festival without seeing a jolly Santa or Father Claus! This wee girl was so enamoured that she ran to hise sleigh!

Overlooking Princes Street Gardens is of course the castle.

Built on an extinct volcano it is kinda hard to scale!

The Ross Fountain

The beautiful cast iron fountain you see is the Ross fountain and was installed in 1872 (a great year that saw the found of my football club Rangers!).

Local gun maker, Daniel Ross, saw a fountain in London at the Great Exhibition of 1862 and in 1869 purchased a larger version as a gift to Edinburgh. The 122 pieces that make up the fountain were shipped to Leith, and transported to Princes St Gardens for assembly.
source Edinburgh World Heritage

Going round the back you can see Princes St up above.

It seemed to me to be a bit too grassy and it liked like clumps of unkempt weeds!

I remember as kid coming here and the water was frozen.

I am glad they restored it as it really is beautiful.

I was going up and down between the middle and bottom paths, and they had these arches to disguise all the cables that were needed to supply power etc.

Up above we do go past the wonderful tribute to

Wojtek the Soldier Bear Memorial

He was a real bear and may I say a real hero.

Wojtek the Bear, Syrian brown bear adopted by soldiers in the Polish army during World War II. The bear, who was initially given the rank of private, eventually rose to the rank of corporal and served mainly as a morale booster for the soldiers.

source

I remember writing about him before, let me see if I can find the post...

Found it and you can read here Wojtek the bear in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh in Scotland

Next up on the ground level was the stage and auditorium.

And above it the start of the Royal Mile which leads from the castle down to the Palace.

Moving back down to the lower level we can the rest of the west end winter festivities.

The stone you can see was erected in 1972 and is in remembrance of all the foreign soldiers that trained here.

Looking east we can see where we are going once we cross the road!

This was the auditorium I mentioned earlier, I sat there a few times in my youth with bottles of voddy getting hammered listening to bands!

Next up is this beautiful elephant sculpture which you can see was erected in memory of children who passed away far too early.

I am guessing it was placed intentionally beside the mother and children statue.

This is our last stop before we cross the road and is one of the big memorials to World War II. It deserves it's own post.

Time then to get up those steps!

This road is what we call the Mound and my bus would come up and down here twice a day when I was at school.

My old bus .. the number 23

As luck would have it, as I was waiting to cross the road, the number 23 came down past the mound,that was the bus service I used to take to school.

Crossing over the road you can either stay on Princes Street or go up the mound and come back down Playfair steps.

Either way you end on the East gardens.

This section of the gardens is home to the big wheel and helterskelter and other big rides for the winter, as well as the Scott monument.

You can also see up top is where they have the Christmas market.

That is too much too include in this post!

The dog was about to join in some fun,and no he wasn't looking at the people going round and round up in the air!

Do you like carnival rides like that?

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the rest of your day!

All images and ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman TengoLoTodo and pictures were taken with my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphone and lead image designed on canva.
@tengolotodo December 27th 2024

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