The Athens of the North - Edinburgh

I have just been fortunate to spend a few days with my great friends A and H, whose younger daughter is my goddaughter, and who for the last five and a bit years have lived in Edinburgh. They kindly decided that they had missed me (encouraged by me, I hasten to add) after around ten years of enforced separation of our ways and invited me to visit with them and stay in their flat in Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities in the whole wide world.

Why do I rate Edinburgh so, you may ask, ignorant of the fact that it and I go back a long way - I first came here to sell wine in the mid-1980s with a great deal of success, counting most of the city's top wine merchants as customers and/or friends, falling in love with their city at the same time. While the volume of business was never staggering it was always ticking along nicely, giving me a reason to visit this beautiful city. All that ended for me in the mid 1990s when my wholesale wine business had to be scaled down in the face of insurmountable commercial difficulties created by one of my main suppliers. I was still able to visit Edinburgh for joyous events such as the wedding of my friend Ian, and a subsequent magnificent 50th birthday celebration, but no more on an annual or regular basis.

But I have come back at last and in the last few days I've enjoyed walking around Edinburgh in glorious sunshine but crisp, even cold, weather, reacquainting myself with the place and soaking in the local atmosphere and culture to my heart's content. And what a lot of bits of both one finds here, some obvious but others less so.

First things first: At its heart Edinburgh is a gloriously beautiful city, with notably beautiful buildings belonging to several periods; several public buildings had a heavy Hellenistic influence, leading to the city acquiring the soubriquet of 'the Athens of the North'. This is somewhat ironic given the very different quality of light between Athens and Edinburgh, but probably richly deserved from the philosophical point of view - Edinburgh was at the heart of the Enlightenment movement in the British Isles, much as Athens led ancient Greece in the philosophical stakes.

Edinburgh is not all beauty, of course, and has its fair share of ordinary, indifferent or even unsightly buildings, some out of step with their surroundings, others just plain ugly; it is not some earthly paradise where only beauty reigns. By and large, though, the central bits are diverse but gorgeous in a way unique to Scotland, marrying different styles with local stone and a utilitarian elegance seldom successfully encountered elsewhere. This is not light, ethereal beauty but dark, less airy and open but beguiling nevertheless, with the older styles marrying effortlessly and modern buildings at times sticking out like sore thumbs and occasionally fitting in beautifully, even if their function is alien to the fabric of the place, like the mosque you will see in one of my photographs - architecturally it blends in quite well, but culturally it may be less of a fit. But, of course, the new world reality is forcing us to reevaluate the blends of local culture and expand our horizons in ways previously thought impossible; time will tell if this is truly successful for all involved.

One of the lovely things of a city the size of Edinburgh is that you can walk most anywhere if the weather is not too extreme, giving the place a more human feel. It may be a capital city and a seat of power but it is not huge by size and, therefore, not intimidating for the visitor; loads of overseas visitors seemed to be enjoying the sights and sounds of the place during my time there. Certainly the central bits around the Old Town, the Castle and the New Town are eminently walkable and allow the best perspective of the place. Beauty is all around, sometimes marred by modernist ugliness, but generally homogeneous enough to give a period feeling and to encourage the sales of tourist tat, as in so many other tourist destinations.

Edinburgh bars and restaurants are interesting and, while the chains are represented quite well, there are many independent establishments worth a visit I'm sure; unfortunately I was not able to do so myself, as we had quite a full program, but hopefully my friends will invite me back at a time when I will have more time and money to spend. If you know them too, perhaps you can put in a good word for me...

And don't be too surprised if I have more to say on the subject of Edinburgh - I do and I will, soon!