|
Things to do in Scotland
-
Holyroodhouse Palace
The Holyrood Palace or more
appropriately, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is the official
residence of the monarchy in Scotland, standing at the bottom of
the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, almost opposite of Edinburgh
Castle. This castle is where the state ceremonies and official
entertainment is done, and was founded in 1128, by David I, King
of Scots. It has been the official residence of the kings and
queens of Scots since the 15th century. Queen Elizabeth II comes
here one week every summer to take care of many official
functions and ceremonies. It is open to the public, except of
course, when the royal family is here. The ruins of the
Augustinian abbey that occupies part of the grounds were built
in 1128, by King David I of Scotland, and Holyrood abbey has
seen many coronations and marriage ceremonies, with numerous
kings of Scots and other Scottish royalty buried here. The roof
collapsed in 1768, and hasn't been repaired. The abbey was
adapted to act as a chapel for the Order of the Thistle by King
James VII in 1687-88, but later was destroyed by a mob, and in
1691, Kirk of the Canongate replaced the abbey as the local
parish church, and that is where the Queen attends services when
she is here. During the 15th century, there was a guest
house located on the northern part of the palace, west of the
abbey and cloister. It was here that numerous Scotland medieval
kings stayed, before the palace would be built, but by the end
of the 15th century, it was a royal residence in everything but
the name. James II was born there in 1430, was crowned here
later, married and then buried here. Between 1498 and 1501,
James IV would built a new structure, which made the palace what
it is today. It was constructed around a quadrangle, west of the
cloister, with a chapel, great hall, gallery and royal
apartments. The chapel was on the north side, while the Queens's
chambers were in the south; and a third of the west area
belonged to the King, as well as the entry way to the palace.
James V would add more to the palace between 1528 and 1536,
starting with the north-west tower, which was where Mary, Queen
of Scots lived. The wooden ceilings that are located in the
rooms were installed during Mary's reign, and the monograms MR
(Maria Regina) and IR (Jacobus Rex) belong to Mary and her son,
James VI. There are shields that commemorate her marriage to
Francis II of France, thought to have been carved around 1559,
and then rearranged to their current location in 1617. There is
an audience chamber, and the Queen's bedroom, going into two
turret rooms. In the northern one, in 1565, the infamous murder
of David Rizzio occurred with Mary right there, and for
centuries later, visitors were sure that they could see his
blood stains on the floor. James VI became the King of England
in 1603, and moved to the London palace, making this palace no
longer the seat of the royal court, although James visited in
1617 and Charles I in 1633, when he came here to be crowned in
the abbey. A fire occurred in 1650, during the visit of Oliver
Cromwell and his troops, but he had the palace restored; which
was then torn down by Charles II and rebuilt in its current form
between 1671 and 1679 by Sir William Bruce. James VII and II
lived here between 1680 and 1682, while he was still the Duke of
Albany, after the Exclusion crisis. It would be used during the
elections of Scottish representative peers after 1707, and
Bonnie Prince Charlie would hold his court here during the
Jacobite Rising in 1745. George III would let Louis XVI's
youngest brother stay here from 1796 to 1799 after the French
Revolution, and when they were exiled a second time, the French
royals stayed here from 1830 to 1832, and then moved to Vienna.
-
National Gallery of Scotland
The National Gallery of
Scotland is located in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is the national
art gallery of the country, which is a spectacular neoclassical
building that stands on the Mound, between two parts of the
Princes Street Gardens. The structure opened in 1859, and was
designed by William Henry Playfair, and shares the Mound with
the Royal Scottish Academy building. Both of these structures
were remodeled by William Thomas Oldrieve in 1912, and when the
gallery was again opened, it would focus its attentions on
building up the permanent collection of European and Scottish
art. The gallery's archives and study buildings include the
prints and drawings collection that contain more than 30,000
works on paper, that range from the early renaissance to the
latter 19th century, as well as the reference-only research
library that is open to the public. The library contains items
from the 14th to the 20th centuries and contains about 50,000
volumes of journals, slides, books, microfiches and photographs
and archived material that pertains to the collections, history
and exhibitions of the gallery. The Weston Link is an
underground connector between the two structures and the last
phase of the Playfair Project, and opened in August 2004. There
is a lecture theater, restaurant, shop, education area and
interactive, touch screen IT gallery that shows the collections
of the National Galleries, and there is a modern square between
the two structures, that has wonderful views of the Edinburgh
Castle and Princes Street. The nucleus of the gallery's
collection is a cluster of paintings that were transferred from
the Royal Scottish Academy building and includes masterpieces by
Giambattista Tiepolo, Jacop Bassano and Van Dyck. Other
important and prominent works include those painted such artists
as; Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Sandro Botticelli, Claude Monet,
Antoon van Dyck, Antonio Canova, El Greco, Paul Cezanne, Gavin
Hamilton, Jean Simeon Chardin, Hugo van der Goes, Thomas
Gainsborough, Paul Gaugin, Francisco de Goya, John Constable,
Edgar Degas, Dominique Ingres, Gerard David, Nicolas Poussin,
Antoine Watteau, Sir Henry Raeburn, Titian, Pieter Jansz
Saenredam, Diego Velazquez, Georges Seurat, Johannes Vermeer,
Joseph Mallord William Turner and many more wonderful and
exciting artists that include the likes of Francis Bacon,
William Blake, Albrecht Durer, Vincent van Gogh, Leonardo da
Vinci, Frans Hals, Hans Holbein the Younger, Pissaro, Peter Paul
Rubens, and so many more that it would take a couple of pages to
include them all. Needless to say, it is an incredible
collection of paintings and will take the visitor days to peruse
them all, and that is just the paintings.
|
