Finding the Holy Grail

Hiya—a quick post after a great day. Today was our last day before I resume teaching, and Ben and I, and one of my students, elected to use it for a short road trip. We took an Edinburgh bus about seven miles south of Edinburgh, to Roslin, to visit the Rosslyn Chapel. I’d like to say that I chose to see it for the beautiful and plentiful stone carvings, but I was really in it because of The Da Vinci Code, which you have no doubt read, and, if you are anything like me, you thought it was a very poorly written book, but it still totally captured your imagination. I’m embarrassed by how much I enjoyed reading it. It was the most-discussed book in my Georgia book club, and we all agreed that it was the book we “hated to love.”

But I digress.

The weather was beautiful here today—sunny and seventy-ish, and we are anticipating uncharacteristically hot weather at the end of this week (91 F in Edinburgh.) Good news for our crew is that we are headed to the Highlands on Friday, and then on to Glasgow on Sunday evening. Most of the students have already said they are sad to leave Edinburgh and I agree, but I will muster the energy to be enthusiastic about Glasgow. Ben and I are lucky that we get to come back to Edinburgh for about a week at the end of the month, before journeying on to Italy to see Kate.

Anyway, phew, off topic. Rosslyn was beautiful—intimate and impressive. We spent about an hour inside and a second hour outside. It was built in the 15th century by the St. Clair family, cousins to William the Conqueror, joining him on his invasion of England in 1066. Sometime later, Will and the St. Clair’s had a falling out, and Malcolm “Big Head”, who was at the time the King of what would be Scotland, gave them some Scottish land so that the St. Clair’s could move north. Big Head’s wife was Margaret of Hungary, who would later be canonized (the oldest building in Edinburgh Castle is the chapel that Margaret’s son David built for his mother) and she had a piece of the crucifix at the time of her death, or part of the “Holy Rood.” The ultimate destination for that relic is unknown, but many believe that it is the crypt (sealed still today by the St. Clair family) of the Rosslyn Chapel. There were so many things that I loved about Rosslyn Chapel, amongst them the carvings of three plants found in America, probably found in what is now Massachusetts, earlier than 1492, by a St. Clair who traveled to North America as part of the Knights Templar.

Okay, okay, I know. Too much history. As many of you know, I LOVE churches and cathedrals. Always have, always will. Rosslyn moved into the top three today, though: Rosslyn Chapel, York Minster, and Concord United Methodist Church in Temple, Georgia.

Must teach myself all about the Jacobite wars now, as I have to teach it to eleven mildly-interested minds in about eleven hours. Tomorrow is teaching, an afternoon at the portrait gallery, dinner with the students, and a quiz. A good day.

The pics are from the walk way along the Water of Leith, very near us, and of a thistle on said walk. No pics of Rosslyn allowed, probably because of the Holy Grail/Audrey Tautou.

Love,
Robyn and Ben