ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.
Some more of my solo Edinburgh bus trips from October 2025 when a three week long warm and sunny spell of glorious autumnal weather persuaded me to make about a dozen journeys to Scotland's capital city in one month. Just when I thought I was finished with Edinburgh for the year I read an article about another new mural in the city just off Holyrood Road. As this was directly under Arthur's Seat I could easily combine it with other outdoor attractions in the area that I remembered from previous visits a decade ago so off I went again. A view of Greendykes bing from the bus, above, a massive pile of discarded spent shale from paraffin oil extraction that makes a good high level walk in it's own right.
Found right beside this distinctive red building just up Holyrood Road from The Scottish Parliament and the Dynamic Earth exhibit lies this mural wall.
It's by the same artist that painted The Colinton Tunnel and other city murals, Chris Rutterford. The rest of them featured in my previous Edinburgh posts from a few months ago.
This explains the legend of Holyrood.
The cross of Holyrood above the stag. In those days it was all about signs and wonders and religious messages supposedly seen in nature.
Butterflies and dove.
The King. Looks a bit clueless in this. At least he's not thundering into it with a long lance. The normal sport of kings and princes in past times.
A game of crows.
The horse bolts leaving the king alone to face the mighty stag... and remarkably it doesn't kill him. In nature it's usually humans that attack things without a good reason. Most animals will leave you alone if you don't bother them. But of course he had to see something holy in it.
The proud stag.
The jay. Best photo I've ever taken of this illusive woodland bird. I've heard it plenty of times but they always darts away before I even get the camera out. Need to be either very lucky or have a garden that backs onto jay habitat. Only snapshots of this mural as it's a narrow lane and hard to photograph the full spread in one go.
After visiting the mural I had a wander around Cowgate and Holyrood Road. Not as many tourists here although it is a student hangout. Loads of modern student apartments, University of Edinburgh buildings and old period streets. I liked it here. Quieter than the Princes Street and Royal Mile seething hordes yet still full of interesting architecture.
Same place looking up at Edinburgh's multi level street design where some of the old tenement buildings are 10 to 12 floors high. Early skyscrapers. Streets running above and below.
Contrast that with the modern apartments on Holyrood Road just a short distance away. Like architects everywhere, slightly imitating the older buildings in the same vicinity.
The Dumbiedykes flats on the opposite side of Holyrood Road. And a first glimpse of Holyrood Park on this outing.
Blackfriars Street.
The modern part of Holyrood Road
Local shops. All within a short distance of each other.
Dumbiedykes Flats. Ordinary folk.
The + UN building. Holyrood Road. Students.
St Mary's Street and Holyrood Road.
Same row of shops - different angle.
More new apartments.
With the inclusion of the Scottish Parliament Building and the Dynamic Earth exhibit/white pavilion I cannot think of another road I've ever been in, of comparatively short distance as this one, with such a different range of building styles. I give you Holyrood Road.
Scottish Parliament building. Also Holyrood Road.
Calton Hill from the Dynamic Earth Exhibit.
Dynamic Earth walkway.
As it was a lovely day outside and plenty more to see in the surrounding area I didn't bother going inside as I knew it was £18:50 concession and £21 adult each admission ticket. I was also very puzzled as it looked an empty large hall apart from a busy cafe and this big hanging ball. Nothing else. I was so puzzled by this view today doing the post I looked it up online. Surely that can't be it? Like many parts of Edinburgh the real attraction here lies deep underground in tunnels and basement level. Worth another Edinburgh trip just to to see it for myself.
I also had a wander down Edinburgh's famous tight lanes running between the various period streets.
There is graffiti in Edinburgh's city centre district but mostly it's confined to dark back lanes or stairways.
Unsightly but only in odd corners. Unlike Glasgow's in your face waterfront walkway (opposite Barclays mega bank) which is a real disgrace since the various pandemic lock-downs occurred and a slap in the face to Glasgow's tourist ambitions, graffiti here is usually tucked away. Although I don't go into Glasgow's city centre very often these days, once or twice a year, every time I do go in it gets worse. Traffic diverted dug up city streets, old buildings falling down ( both in Sauchiehall Street) big name stores boarded up, and as well as traditional shoppers a feral zombie land of the dispossessed, the walking wounded, the homeless, and the left behind (Argyle Street- four corners.) plus the km long River Clyde waterfront. Many will remember when it just had one professional tiger mural here- very little additional graffiti. In most other cities (Liverpool springs to mind) a waterfront location is a real tourist asset... but in Glasgow a few good murals down there will not dispel the overall ghastliness of it. And I have no idea how you could fix that . It's too ingrained now despite a waterfront of brand new hotels and large banks in the same location . A combination of online shopping, outskirt retail parks, lack of free parking in the city centre, the gig economy and mass migration. It's also almost an hour bus travel from the outskirts just to arrive at the down at heel so called 'Style Mile.' A grubby dump nowadays compared to a handy five minute drive to your nearest local retail park which is clean, safe, and usually beggar free and yet Liverpool somehow manages it. To be a great modern city from a post industrial past. Even Edinburgh looked tired and grubby when I was there in October compared to previous visits in the last decade but nothing like as bad as Glasgow. Being honest there's a lot of online videos about people looking for Glasgow's worst housing estates on You Tube but most of them have been demolished, tarted up and improved since the 1990s. IMH0 the worst sink estate in Glasgow nowadays is.......... Glasgow City Centre itself. And I'm not joking. I wish I was.
I had a walk around the bottom of Holyrood Park, just as the mist was burning off. Although Arthur's Seat is the main draw here some of the quieter corners of this park are well worth exploring.
Walkers on the cliff edge seen from Holyrood Road. Dumbiedykes district.
It was studying the various rocks of this ancient volcano in the middle of the city and at other Scottish locations in the 1700s that Scot James Hutton ( the father of modern geology) formulated his radical idea that the earth was far older than previously thought. And had been twisted, melted, eroded then reformed many times in its long history. The subject of the Dynamic Earth exhibit next door to these same cliffs.
I met a student walking along under Arthur's Seat and we both remarked how this view above could easily be from the Pyrenees in France/ Spain, where she came from. Even though there was 7000 to 9000 feet of a height difference between them.
At the junction of Holyrood Park Road and Dalkeith Road this Scottish Widows building gained awards when it was completed in the 1970s consisting of 12 interlocked black glass hexagons. Thousands of workers were gradually transferred elsewhere when it closed in 2020. The last time I was here pre- covid I was fascinated by the large colourful goldfish swimming in these outdoor pools. Never seen that before outside of a protected glasshouse fish pool setting. In Glasgow they'd soon be stolen and eaten so quite sad to see this building and it's impressive pools lying half drained and abandoned now. Apparently some of it will be getting demolished soon with something else taking over this corner site. Cities are always changing. And only older folk remember the past.... as it was then.
