THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE and other Edinburgh, United Kingdom Off The Beaten Path Tips

This is a rather fun piece of information. Something not known by many! Not even among the habbitants of Edinburgh...

Walking down George IV Bridge (coming from Royal Mile) theres a grand building on the left hand side. Many times have I walked passed, not knowing that one of the statues by the rooftop has lost his face.
After living in Edinburgh for 3 years a collegue at work told me the story about how a worker that was cleaning the statues accidently cleaned one of them to the extent that nothing remained of the face on one of them. Apparently he panicked and got out a thick filter pen from his pocket and drew eyes, nose and a mouth on it.
If the story is true I can not say. But when you take a close look at the old Mid-Lothian County Building one fact remains. One of the statues is a man without a face!
Go see for yourself!!! =)

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Craigmillar Castle lies just three miles south east of the centre of Edinburgh and is one of the most completely preserved medieval castles in Scotland.

History
Craigmillar began life as the tower house that still forms the core of the castle. This was constructed around 1400. In the 1440s Craigmillar's most notable feature was added, the curtain wall that surrounds the tower house on three sides and creates the inner courtyard. In about 1510 a further layer of enclosure was added, outer walls were erected to form the outer yard and east and west gardens.
Craigmillar Castle was captured by the English in May 1544. Rebuilding in the 1550s included the construction of a new range of buildings, designed to provide more modern and spacious accommodation than was available in the tower house.
It was probably in this new range that Mary Queen of Scots stayed in September 1563 and again in December 1566. It was during her second stay that conspirators agreed the "Craigmillar Bond": the plot to kill Mary's husband.
In the early 1700s Craigmillar was abandoned by its owners. It became overgrown and ruinous over the following two centuries, and was passed into state care in 1946. Today it is cared for by Historic Scotland.

Opening Hours:
The castle is open all year as follows:
April to September: 9.30am to 6.30pm every day.
October to March: 9.30am to 4.30pm Saturday to Wednesday (closed all day Thursday and Friday).
Admission: Adult £3.50, Child £1.50.

Address:
Craigmillar Castle Road, Edinburgh, EH16 4SY
The castle is located south-east of Edinburgh city centre, at Craigmillar. 3 miles from the centre of Edinburgh, on the A7.

Buses that go to Craigmillar are no: 2, 14, 21, 30 and 42.

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One of the most spectacular man-made landmarks in Scotland is the Forth Rail Bridge. The bridge is 2.5 km long and the world’s first major steel bridge, with its gigantic girder spans of 521 m. It ranks as one of the great feats of civilization. It was begun in 1883 and formally completed on 4 March 1890.
It was constructed by Tancred–Arrol and robustly designed by civil engineers Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Baker in the aftermath of the Tay Bridge disaster*.
The bridge crosses the River Forth between South Queensferry and North Queensferry, and still carries the East Coast mainline railway north from Edinburgh to Perth and Dundee.

(*At approximately 7:15 p.m. on the stormy night of 28 December 1879, the central navigation spans of the Tay bridge collapsed into the Firth of Tay at Dundee, taking with them a train, 6 carriages and 75 souls to their fate.)

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