Tag Archives: Edinburgh Castle

Scones, Top

The Elephant House

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Welcome to the Elephant House, “The Birthplace of Harry Potter”. As far as Pat and I are concerned, we are aware of Harry Potter but that’s about it. Our knowledge and enthusiasm do not extend much beyond that.

picture of an elephant
One of the many elephant pictures at the Elephant House. This one eyeing up our scones

At the moment, however, we have two mini people living with us and for them, it is a different story entirely. They worship the very ground Harry walks on. And they are not the only ones. Legions of similarly minded people descend on this place simply because JK Rowling wrote some of the books in the backroom of this café. To be fair, other authors used it as well. Ian Rankin of Rebus fame and Alexander McCall-Smith who wrote the No1 Ladies Detective Agency to name but two.

Internal view of the Elephant House, EdinburghThe Harry Potter phenomena

But it’s the Harry Potter fame that has done for this place. It’s a veritable Mecca for Potter fans who make pilgrimages from all over the world, China in particular. The menu is printed in English and Chinese and there’s a mountain of memorabilia for sale. It’s quite a big café but we still had to wait about twenty minutes to be seated. The days of it being a hang out for aspiring authors have long gone. Even if they could get in, the atmosphere is pretty frenetic and hardly conducive to creative thinking. Having said that, it’s not difficult to imagine Rowling sitting here, gazing out the window at Edinburgh Castle and coming up with Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She eventually gave rise to the most successful book series of all time. Apparently it’s worth £4bn to the UK economy. Amazing!

A scone at the Elephant House, EdinburghThat’s all very well but would Harry have waved his magic wand over the scones? Well, he may well have done, they were very good.  Someone commented, “the service is so slow in here, anyone could write a book.” However, we found that, although the staff seemed to be run off their feet, they remained remarkably cheerful amidst the general busyness. The scones came with prepacked jam and a nice little bowl of clotted cream. Normally we like a bit of crunchiness to our scones but these were none the worse for being soft throughout. Our mini people gave the final verdict, thumbs up and a chorus of “we love scones” … topscone!

Graffiti in the toilets of the Elephant House
The owners have given up repainting the toilets. Potter fans scrawl their messages everywhere

This is certainly not the cheapest café in town but if there is a constant queue of people wanting to get in you can probably charge whatever you like.

The Harry Potter stories are about the gentle polite underdog eventually triumphing over evil. At the moment we desperately need Harry to go up against the current UK government and their draconian immigration policies. Unbelievable considering every one of them are either immigrants or the offspring of immigrants. The demented Prime Minister, Boris Johnson was born in the USA of Turkish descent; the Hindu Chancellor, Rishi Sunak’s parents were from Punjab; the loathsome Home Secretary, Priti Patel’s parents were Ugandan Indian and the deranged First Secretary of State, Dominic Raab’s were from Czechoslovakia. Their families have been welcomed into Britain in the past but now they are pulling up the ladder! If they get their way the Elephant House, along with every other restaurant in Edinburgh, won’t have any staff. Harry will have to work extra hard on his magical anti-fascist spells.

EH1 1EN      tel: 0131 220 5355       Elephant House

///spike.hurry.thank

Scones, weird

Queen Anne Tearoom

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Although we have lived in or near to Edinburgh for most of our lives up until now we have never been inside the Castle. We have done the Military Tattoo in the past and been up at the castle many times but not actually inside. A bit strange really but we just didn’t feel the need.  Also, of course, in the summer it’s extremely busy with tourists and, as it turns out, it’s extremely busy in the winter as well. Had we not already had tickets for a book reading we would have had to wait in a queue for about 30 minutes to get a ticket. Hundreds of Japanese, Chinese, French, Americans, Germans … amazing, all in temperatures no higher than 2ºC!

Our book reading was by Sara Sheridan to publicise her latest novel On Starlit Seas and it just so happened that there was an afternoon tea thrown in as well as a tour of the castle. How could we refuse?

External view of tearoom at Edinburgh Castle
The Queen Anne tearoom

There are a two tearooms but ours  was the Queen Anne Tearoom up at the top of the castle. So we were able to explore everything on the way up. We stood waiting for the one o’clock gun to go off. Watching our watches. Watching the gun. And got the fright of our lives when it did go off … bang on one o’clock! Lots of exhibits about Scotland’s history culminating in the room housing the Scottish Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny.

Scottish aristocrats

Here you are warned within an inch of your life that you must not take ph

The tearoom for afternoon tea at Edinburgh Castle
part of the tearoom

otographs or make any sort of recording. People answering  their phones were pounced on and told to put them away. What on earth is that all about? Anyway we looked dutifully at everything. Although there was a lot about the 1707 Act of Union, we could not see much mention of the fact that it was forced on the people of Scotland against their will. That the Scottish aristocrats (the only people allowed to influence proceedings) had to be bribed with £20,000 each in order to get it passed. Maybe we missed that bit? Afternoon tea menu at Edinburgh Castle
The afternoon tea was very imaginative. The whole menu was based around ‘Book Week Scotland’ and book titles.  Outlander sandwiches, Alice in Wonderland “Eat Me” sponge cakes and Mrs Weasley’s chocolate fudge tart. The afternoon tea at Edinburgh Castle

Secret Mandarin scones

You will see from the menu that there were ‘mandarin’ scones inspired by Sara’s book The Secret Mandarin. Although this was all very nice, for dedicated sconeys, this was taking things a bit too far. They were very tangy and sweet, more like cakes, and covered in an orange drizzle that made them even sweeter. With strawberry jam?? At the end of the day they weren’t toooo bad – just ‘weird’. Don’t let our experience put you off visiting. We don’t think the scones are normally like this.

Kings of Scotland display at Edinburgh Castle
Kings of Scotland
On Starlit Seas

It was a really enjoyable day. The castle was interesting though the information was a bit sanitised for our taste. The reading from On Starlit Seas was really interesting. Sara is a lovely lady who managed to spend time with everyone individually. We wish her well with the book. The afternoon tea was great as well in spite of our reservations about the scones.

Looking east from Edinburgh Castle
Looking east from the Castle towards dusk

EH1 2NG     tel: 0131 225 9846     Edinburgh Castle

self-service

Falkirk Wheel Café

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Nowadays, although it is not that long ago, it is quite difficult to think back to the millennium and all that was going on at that time. Remember the millennium bug that was going to throw every computer and hence the world into chaos at the stroke of midnight? In central Scotland the big project was the rejuvenation and rejoining of the Union canal and the Forth & Clyde canal. Both had lain derelict and unloved for many many years. At one time the canals had been joined by a series of locks but they had long since disappeared so the answer was to build the Falkirk Wheel to raise boats from the lower Forth &Clyde canal into the Union and vice versa.External view at the Falkirk Wheel Café

The result was a spectacular feat of engineering which has successfully put Falkirk, for the first time ever, on the tourist map. It seems to be continually busy with people from all over the world just coming to look at how it works. Or taking boat trips to actually experience it for themselves. Catering for this influx of visitors is the ubiquitous visitor centre with the usual gift shop and cafe area. The gift shop has all the stuff which you would find in any shop aimed directly at tourists. We always find this disappointing and slightly irritating because tourists to Scotland must find almost exactly the same choice of goods whether they are. At Falkirk Wheel or Culloden battlefield or Edinburgh Castle. Kind of the same way as the Queen must find that the world smells of fresh paint.

Internal view at the Falkirk Wheel CaféThe café here is confusing and disappointing. Difficult to figure out the system and, when you do, it just screams of inefficiency. That said they do have a reasonable range of stuff on offer. However, it is set up pretty much like a school canteen, a bit cold and clinical. The service is a bit like that as well, nobody seems to be enjoying working there. It probably suffers in the same way as all places that don’t actually have to attract customers in their own right. The customers arrive to see the Wheel and there’s nowhere else to go for something to eat or drink. A kind of monopoly situation.

We bought some lunch but because they had banana and chocolate chip scones we thought that, being dedicated sconeys, we had to try them as well. A scone at the Falkirk Wheel CaféThey were okay, quite good texture and definitely tasted .. you’ve guessed it, of banana and chocolate. Fine as a novelty scone but definitely not going to displace the traditional ones. Just call us old fashioned.

Democracy?

Apart from the Wheel itself, this was a disappointing experience. We brought some friends from England along who had never been to Falkirk before and had hoped for better. Also hoping for better as the election dust settles and Westminster gets back to work. It does make you wonder about the state of democracy in the UK. 85% of Scotland, 73% of Wales and 58% of England didn’t vote for the Tories but got them anyway. An outright Tory government threatening to do away with our human rights. Scotland even gets a Secretary of State to speak on its behalf, chosen from a shortlist of one. The one Scottish Conservative MP? There must be a better system!