Day 15 - Haunting Edinburgh

The mercury - or rather my weather app - reads one degree celcius (34 fahrenheit). Eventually I find Edinburgh Central YHA on Leith St, made all the more difficult because Leith St is also known as Elms Row. The location of the hostel on Annandale St revives thoughts of home.

The Royal Mile awaits. Buildings along cobbled Royal Mile range from medieval to Victorian, as Edinburghians have done much to preserve their architectural heritage. It's too late enter Edinburgh Castle, but it looks a formidable edifice. 

Tourists and photographers still meander in front of the battlements. The are excellent views of the city from the precipice on which it stands, are enhanced by an introspective sunset.

Trekking back to the hostel, I pass a man standing on the lower rim of a statue. A few metres away are signs advertising Edinburgh Ghost Tours. As I'm not dead I don't think I'm eligible. But the guide assures me the living are allowed on these tours as well. In fact he points out I may well have misread his sign - the tours are not for ghosts, rather they are about ghosts. He looks at me quizzically, as if my misreading of the sign is evidence of a foggy insubstantiality.

Of course, Edinburgh is the most haunted city in the world. But this is no ordinary traipse about the city streets at night - this is a Paranormal Investigation! And we're to descend into the vaults of the city like worms into the bowels of a cadavre.

Chefs and cellarmen and washerwomen and vermin used to live and work here, yet an upperclass ghost is also said to haunt the chambers - the shade of a wee young lad who jumped down and couldn't climb out.

The select among us are handed ghost busterometers (scientifically known as EMFDs, or Electromagnetic Field Detectors). A series of coloured lights indicates the intensity of electromagnetic activity within a small radius. I hold it to my head - as no lights appear the device probably isn't functioning. But four lights illuminate when I hold it near a pile of stones in the corner. One more light and I could've been sure of an otherworldly presence - either that or I was underneath the power generator of the pub above.

I'm the last to leave the exhibition at the end of the tour and lucky not to get locked inside the vault for the night. It's one thing to be sceptical in the presence of a theatrical and knowledgeable tour guide; quite another to be alone beneath an ancient city in the darkness with cold stones and spirits long gone for company.

But I find company with two Swiss girls, a Welshman and a Scot from Glasgow. We decide to debrief at a warm tavern and spend a couple of merry hours discussing studies, travels, ghosts and the origins of the universe. A year from now, we even agree to hire a van and cruise through the States on Route 66. I'm sure an Arizona ghost tour will be on the cards.