Arthur's seat

Arthur’s seat is a huge hill of about 822 foot, situated in the centre of the city of Edinburgh, it provides an excellent panoramic views of the city and we can see the sea. The name may came from the legend of King Arthur but lots of others theories contradict this belief.

We visited Arthur’s seat on the 4th day, during the afternoon. The weather was really bad, cloudy and cold, really not appropriate to visit a hill and enjoy the panorama… But the walk was quite funny and interesting. The beginning was easy, a kind of little lowland, we didn’t need to make lots of efforts to arrive at the second step. Just before the real ascent, hidden by two great hill, come of them decided to stop the climb and return to the meeting point, at the foot of the hill. And the bravest of us decided to try the ascent even if it was cold and windy. It was harder than the first part of the climb because there were rocks which looked like high stairs so for those who had little legs it was really athletic. During about 30min we walked to reach the top of the hill. Arrived at the top, the wind was harder and we couldn’t see farther than our nose. For a panoramic view it was really cloudy. We didn’t meet lots of person at the top unlike at the foot of the hill, even if we cross some walkers, persons who walk their dog and runners... The bad weather does,'t scare Scottish !!! When everybody of our little group was arrived, we tried to take a picture, we were proud and happy even if we couldn’t see anything. To descend, we decided to take an over side, but because of the weather we couldn’t see anything, so we took the wrong way and after going down a steep wall, we had to go back on our steps and took the same path as the driveway.

After this risky and sportive promenade we just wanted to sleep and stay warm. This little adventure was quite funny and even if we couldn’t enjoy the panoramic, the climb was great too.

A little bit of History about this famous place of Edinburgh !

At the beginning, Arthur’s Seat was a volcano that is extincted today. Nowadays it’s the highest site of Edinburgh located between Holyrood Park and Royal Mile

Arthur's Seat also has a particular significance to the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, because this is where the nation of Scotland was dedicated in 1840 "for the preaching of the gospel". The apostle, Orson Pratt arrived in Scotland in early 1850 and climbed the hill to pray to God for more converts. God satisfied his prayers in giving him 200 more converts. Because of this event, the hill was also called Pratt Hill, but this name is hardly ever used by Scottish, you can find it in some ancient texts. Pratt climbed this hill several times to pray god and the inhabitants of Edinburgh.

There are many legends about Arthur’s Seat,

For example, in the XIXth century, five teenagers that were hunting rabits discovered something really strange : they found seventeen coffins that were buried at the top of the hill. Inside of them, there were black shoes and traditional clothes. Nowadays, we still do not know what they represent, perhaps the victims of Burke and Hare .. There are exposed at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

A little bit of Culture :

In the legend of King Arthur, Arthur’s Seat is the place where Camelot, King Arthur’s castle, was settled.

To end up with, as the city of Edinburgh, Arthur’s Seat is a nice place to go. It has many significations, hisorical of cultural ones but it’s also perfect if you want to see Edinburgh perfectly !

Wrote by Anaïs and Angeline.