One of my favorite cities in Europe is definitely Edinburgh and I can't wait to go back. Óscar visited this city last September and this card brought me some good memories of my trip to the scotish capital. One of the last things I did was to climb the Scott Monument. If you're not afraid of hights and narrow spaces, this climb is totally worth it. The views of the city are great.
Photography © Ian Mills
The Scott Monument is the tallest monument to a writer in the world, a Victorian Gothic superstructure towering at 200 feet 6 inches tall with its highest platform reached by 287 steps. It’s a dizzying climb and the staircase narrows as you reach the top but the reward at the end of this claustrophobic ascent is panoramic views of Edinburgh, from Princes Street Gardens where the monument stands, to the Pentland Hills and the Firth of Forth.
Following Scott’s death in 1832, a competition was held to design a monument to him. The winner was one ‘John Morvo’, who turned out to be George Meikle Kemp, a self-taught architect who disguised his name fearing his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would disqualify him. In 1838 Kemp was awarded the contract to construct the monument and John Steell was commissioned to design a monumental statue of Scott to rest in the space between the tower’s four columns. Steell’s statue, made from white Carrara marble, shows Scott with his favourite dog Maida by his side. There are also 64 figures of characters from Scott’s novels around the monument, created by a variety of Scots sculptors. The foundation stone was laid on the 15th of August 1840 and building took nearly four years. It was inaugurated on the 15th of August 1846, but Kemp did not see live to see his design realised having drowned in the Union Canal some months before. - in: http://www.cityofliterature.com/a-to-z/scott-monument-2/
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