Edinburgh Dungeons Review
If you have time to kill after spending 48 hours in Edinburgh and have encountered the typical wet Scottish weather, it might be worthwhile visiting the Edinburgh Dungeons. The Dungeons were not high on our list of things to do, but one drizzly summer afternoon, we decided to head along and check out what the fuss was all about.
Located in the heart of the capital near Waverley Train station, the Edinburgh Dungeons are conveniently located so that you can tick it off your list of things to do after visiting some of the other sights in the city center as well.
The attraction is run as a tour with groups of around 40 people lasting just over an hour. All the characters and guides are dressed in period costumes and play their roles very well. We were nearly the last ones to enter the first room, which is set out like a mock courtroom, and so, of course, we had the front row seats.
Sure enough, Adela was picked out by the “judge” who made her plead guilty to her crime of dancing atop Arthur’s Seat naked. It annoys me when you visit a place like this which is all about crowd interaction, and everyone is too scared to speak up or laugh. So make sure you get involved just like we did.
All the hallways are very dimly lit, and you spend the entire hour waiting for someone to jump out and scare the bejesus out of you, which does happen from time to time. I am not sure how some of the kids on our tour handled it because even I was afraid!
You are ushered into various rooms you are given an insight into what life was like in Scotland a few hundred years ago. Including the different torture devices used, William Wallace’s beheading, meeting Sawney Bean’s family of cannibals and watching a dissection occur.
Our favorite was saved to last when we went on the “Drop Ride to Doom!” Winched up several meters to the hangman’s noose, you are dropped into the pitch blackness to answer for your crimes. It makes for some classic photos they take just as you are released.
Disclaimer: We were provided with two tickets to the Edinburgh Dungeons, but as always, our thoughts and comments are our own.
