As someone who runs a blog specifically about weird/offbeat attractions, I have to confess that I found Edinburgh a lot more… pedestrian than Glasgow. It’s still a great city, don’t get me wrong! I loved Edinburgh Zoo and the Harryhausen exhibition, but I found it a bit tricky to find anything in Edinburgh that wasn’t really obvious.

Nonetheless I did see a few bits and pieces worth discussing ☺️ read on!

#1 – A Cabinet of Extinct Beasts 🦤

As I mentioned in my post about the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, I find taxidermied remains of recently extinct animals fascinating, if a little sad. Fortunately for me (and less fortunate for the animals) the National Museum of Scotland has more or less every notable species that’s recently died out, including a thylacine, multiple dodo skeletons and an entire quagga on display. There’s also a skull from a Stella’s Sea Cow (a massive extinct dugong that lived in the Bering Sea), among other lesser known beasts.

The saddest thing on display, however, is the tiny shell of a Polynesian Tree Snail, which died out in 1994. It’s quite sobering to think that such a tiny animal ultimately couldn’t be spared from complete annihilation!

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#2 A Spooky, Subterranean City 👻

The Real Mary King’s Close is a cool attraction – a centuries old network of houses, streets storerooms that’s been turned into a museum, accessible only via scheduled tours. Highlights include a haunted bedroom, haunted by the spirit of a dead girl (I felt something touch the back of my neck) and an 18th century living room with horsehair coming out of the walls. It’s a bit creepy but at least it’s educational! I learned a lot about life in Early Modern Scotland.

I’d write a full blog post about it, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to take photos. The rooms are pretty bare and dimly lit, so I’d need to use official photos. I think it’d make the entry a bit boring so I decided not to bother. But don’t let this put you off visiting! The entry price is a bit steep – it’s £18.50 for an hour-long tour – but this place is worth considering if you visit the Royal Mile.

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#3 – An Unexpected Tribute to a Little Known People 🗾

The National Museum of Scotland has ethnographic displays for peoples across the world, but I was really surprised to find a little section dedicated entirely to the Ainu, the first settlers of Hokkaido.

Arriving in what is now Northern Japan thousands of years before the idea of “Japan” even existed, the Ainu are an ethnically distinct people descended from Asiatic Siberian tribes. Their way of life – involving facial tattoos, bear hunting and Animist religion – was violently stamped out by the Japanese government as they colonised Hokkaido. Recently however there’s been an effort to renew Ainu identity, language and spirituality. Today there’s still tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of ethnic Ainu who live in Japan and Siberia.

The Ainu display at the museum is mostly made up of objects donated by Neil Munro, a Scottish anthropologist who was one of the first Western academics to study the Ainu in depth – which explains how these objects ended up thousands of miles from their original home. There’s also a video playing about Ainu religious beliefs. If I ever head back to Japan I’ll try and visit Hokkaido and visit some of the Ainu museums up there, but for now this is as close as I can get.

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#4 – A Tiny Bit of Loch Ness 🦕

I had to make the difficult decision to cut Inverness off my list as getting there and back by train would have just been too awkward. I couldn’t find any coach tours that visited Drumnadrochit, a village on the Loch’s west coast which has a museum nearby dedicated to the monster, so I reluctantly just focused in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Maybe one year I’ll do a Highlands trip, and do an in-depth look (ha) at Loch Ness on the way to the Shetlands or something.

HOWEVER I did meet some lovely people in my hostel, and eventually ended up going on a day tour with them to the Highlands – this included Fort Augustus, the village at the very south of Loch Ness. So I’ve technically been! … but it’s just that I didn’t see enough to really write about.

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#5 – Some Other Cool Exhibits at the National Museum of Scotland 🐑

I was going to do an entire article on this place, but I couldn’t really make it work. Here’s some other cool little things I noticed though!

The East Asia room has a little display on artifacts from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I love the Maoist era mural!

You’d think a massive diorama like this would be difficult to hide, but this cool depiction of prehistoric Scotland is in one of the bottom galleries that no-one seems to visit. I rested here for a good fifteen minutes and nobody else came along! Come say hello to the wolves when you next visit.

I found this bizarre ram head turned snuff box in the upstairs gallery about Victorian Scotland. It’s otherwise a really boring gallery that’s in dire need of a refresh, but it did make me laugh that this… thing somehow ended up at the museum. Someone put so much into making an object so macabre and impractical.

Finally, speaking of sheep… okay yes, this one isn’t really offbeat. Dolly the Sheep is probably the most famous exhibit in the museum, but she’s still cool! There’s an empty base at her display in the Technology section, which made me panic that I’d somehow missed her – but fortunately she’s just in the Natural History section for the time being.

I also respect the fake poo that the taxidermists included near Dolly’s feet. It’s the little things.

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Places I Wanted to Visit But Couldn’t on This Trip

• The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre 🔮 – The famous author developed an interest in the paranormal late in life. This new age centre was formed by a woman who claimed to speak with Arthur from beyond the grave – but unfortunately it’s mostly a community centre sort of thing where classes in meditation and crystal healing are held. Kooky, but not really somewhere I could just walk in and have a look around, at least without booking a class in something.
• The Loch Ness Exhibition Centre 🦕- Some day I’ll visit this one of a kind museum!!!
• The Scottish Parliament ⚖️– Another one I was really excited to write about, but sadly it’s still closed. I did see the outside though – it looks sort of like the EU buildings in Brussels.
• Dundee 🏙️- I had plans to spend a day in this city as they have some cool comic book statues and little museums, but I ran out of time.
• Edinburgh Necropolis 🪦 – I thought Edinburgh had one of these like Glasgow 🤦‍♀️ I previously did a post about another cemetery here though.

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That’s all for Scotland! I’m not safely back south of Hadrian’s Wall. I’ll probably see a couple of small things over the next few months, but check back in December where I’ll hopefully have the first international entries on this blog!!! 🇲🇰