What do a nudist judge, Harry Potter, the telephone, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a club for men who were six-feet tall have in common? That's right: Eccentric Edinburgh. Scotland's capital is often looked upon by its great rival Glasgow as a little bit staid and proper, but this guide to Eccentric Edinburgh proves that's far from the case.
Edinburgh is awash with eccentric characters, as anyone who has visited one of Britain's most beautiful cities will know. And if you haven't been there yet, reading Eccentric Edinburgh will give you a flavor of what to expect.
The shelves of the world's bookshops are packed with guidebooks to Edinburgh – and every other place on the planet. Amazon in the UK currently lists 421 titles if you search for Edinburgh travel books. Rough Guide or Lonely Planet? AA guide or Insight? Berlitz or Bradt? A lot depends on which format you like, and even more on who wrote the book, though by the time you've used the book and found out, it's usually too late. But given this vast choice, specialist guides covering aspects like food and drink, style, literature and, as here, Eccentric Edinburgh, are increasingly interesting.
The nudist judge was the wonderful Lord Monboddo, who lived in the 18th century and believed that anything invented after the ancient Greeks was contemptible, as Eccentric Edinburgh author Benedict le Vay says. He therefore traveled everywhere on horseback, and claimed that babies had their tails cut off when they were born.
Harry Potter? Well, the author includes JK Rowling on the grounds that the Harry Potter stories are slightly eccentric, that Rowling wrote the first one while sitting in Edinburgh cafes, and she chose her agent just because of his name.
The telephone? Scotland is of course famous for its inventors, including Alexander Graham Bell, who was born in South Charlotte Street in Edinburgh. Eccentric Edinburgh's author Benedict le Vay contends that you have to be eccentric in order to be an inventor, and few would argue with that.
The massive pre-internet reference source the Encyclopaedia Britannica was first published in Edinburgh by the magnificently-named William Smellie. Edinburgh has also always liked clubs. As well as the one for men who were six-feet tall, there was the Free and Easy Club, whose only rule was that there were no rules.
The only rule when visiting a place must be to enjoy yourself. Eccentric Edinburgh will certainly help you do that, as it isn't just a collection of tall tales but within its 204 pages are suggestions for places to eat, drink and stay as well as visit. It's full of suggestions from Loonydook to Hogmanay. Buy it!
Eccentric Edinburgh is published in the UK by Bradt Travel Guides at £5.95 and in the USA by The Globe Pequot Press at $12.95
And if you think you would make a good travel writer and guidebook author, why not enter the travel writing competition being run by the Independent on Sunday and Bradt Travel Guides? Click here for details.
Read about Eccentric Cambridge too.
