Perambulating in Perth, Scotland

Onward, ever onward. I’m now in Perth, Scotland. I needed to put the “Scotland” in there because there’s a namesake city in Australia that I think is better known. I’ve been to southeastern Australia but didn’t get out to its west coast, where that country’s Perth is.

Of course, neither of those Perths is anywhere near as well known as Perth, Ontario, Canada. I’m kidding. I don’t know if anyone outside of Ontario knows about that town’s existence. Honestly, I wouldn’t even bet on most Ontarians knowing about it. Then again, I don’t know if any non-Scots who haven’t researched taking a wee trip through Scotland know about this Perth either.

I arrived at my hotel a little after 11:00 in the morning and I had to wait less than 20 minutes for my room to be ready. So I had plenty of time to perambulate in Perth late this morning and all afternoon after getting my room.

I know what you’re thinking. “Perambulate in Perth” is a snooty way to say I walked around Perth. You’re not wrong about that. But, alliteration, people. Alliteration. It provides the perfect pretext for putting “perambulate in Perth” in a paragraph while protesting that doing so is not pretentious.

The point is, plebs, I sauntered around town, stopping for a light lunch and a visit to a museum in the midst of the stroll.

Perambulating, aka Strolling

I came in by train. The area I walked through near the train station is kind of depressing, with unappealing, somewhat rundown, small buildings. But things improve further into central Perth.

When I travel, I sometimes unintentionally, but naturally leap to compare the city or town I’m in to the one I just left. That can be unfair to a town if my previous stop was one I particularly liked. I started the day in Stirling. From what I’ve seen so far, I prefer Stirling to Perth.

This town has a more hardscrabble feel to it. That’s an unprofessional architectural judgment, not an assessment of the people here. The few locals I’ve interacted with so far seem perfectly pleasant and cordial. I’ve seen nary a sole who looks anything like a ruffian.

The buildings look newer and more spartan here and have significantly less charm than those in Stirling. That comparison is not accurate for all buildings in either town. It’s just my overall impression of the agglomeration of buildings in each of the two towns.

The fact that there are significantly more empty storefronts here than in Stirling heightened that hardscrabble impression.

Nevertheless, Perth has some mostly pedestrianized shopping streets that are modestly pleasing.

Enhancing the ambiance of the town, a lovely river flows by Perth, the River Tay. And the River Tay is far closer to the centre of Perth than the River Forth is to the centre of Stirling. So, score one for Perth there.

I’ve now completed a set. For reasons you can find in my first post from Dundee, I didn’t document the start of this trip, in Edinburgh, which is by the firth (estuary) of the River Forth. I then got to experience the River Forth upstream in Stirling. Dundee, one of my previous stops on this trip, is beside the Firth of Tay, and here I am upstream on the River Tay.

The far shore of the River Tay as it passes through Perth is quite attractive. Large residences dot the banks and lush, rolling greenery backs that.

Perth Museum

The Perth Museum is quite new, less than six months old when I was there. I think it was opened mainly to house its star attraction, the Stone of Destiny. That’s not to say that’s the only thing there, but the museum is quite small, somewhat eclectic, and more than a little quirky. In short, my type of museum.

The Stone of Destiny is an unknown number of centuries old, but it was used in the coronation ceremonies of Scottish monarchs until the late 13th century, so it’s at least older than that. The English then captured it and used it for their coronation ceremonies.

There have been several myths about the Stone of Destiny, including some religious stories that claim the stone came from the Holy Land and is imbued with special powers. When the English captured the stone, they used these stories to claim that the stone gave them a divine right to rule Scotland.

The Stone of Destiny also has another name, the Stone of Scone. I’m calling bull. The stone is a sandstone block. I usually find scones too dry for my taste, but they’re never as hard as sandstone.

Needless to say, that’s not the derivation of the name Stone of Scone. More recent studies found that the stone did not come from the Holy Land. It was quarried near Scone, Scotland. If Scone isn’t legally part of Perth, it’s close enough that it could be.

I’ll be going to Scone Palace tomorrow. Maybe I should bring some quarrying tools to excavate a large rock so I can ship it back home and be crowned King of Canada. The current King of Canada, Charles III, might object. But I’ll have the Stone of Canadian Destiny. What can he do? Besides, he doesn’t even live in Canada. I do. So score a point for me there too.

So, what makes the Stone of Destiny/Scone special? Only its history. It’s ar a fairly ordinary stone. The sides are roughly flat as a raw, quarried, unpolished rock might be.

Wikipedia tells me it “measures 26 by 16.7 by 10.5 inches (66 cm × 42 cm × 27 cm) and weighs approximately 335 lb (152 kg; 23.9 st).” There are rings attached on either end of the stone, I assume so it can be lifted into place under the coronation throne when necessary.

During its centuries in England, the stone resided for most of the time in Westminster Abbey, but it’s gone back and forth a few times, including as a result of theft. It’s now returned somewhat permanently to Scotland. And it now resides in its new somewhat permanent home at the Museum of Perth.

I say “somewhat permanent” because it will still be transported back to Westminister Abbey when needed for coronations, as it was in 2023 for the coronation of King Charles III, King of Canada and a few other less consequential places*. Humans can be weird sometimes.

(*For the benefit of the one or two people who stumble on this journal from goodness knows where and don’t know me, I’m Canadian.)

The stone has been damaged a few times as a result of protests and a theft. Repairs are visible on it.

Photography in the Stone of Destiny exhibit was strictly forbidden, so you’ll have to use your imagination to visualize it. Conjure up an image of a rugged, nondescript, uninteresting, somewhat damaged stone block with rings on either end. Your mental image probably comes close.

The rest of the museum contains exhibits on the history of Perth. But there was also a small room with old artifacts from other parts of the world, including the North American Pacific Northwest and Asia.

The museum also had a temporary exhibit about unicorns. One sign there told me that the unicorn has been the symbol of the Scottish monarchy for six centuries. Wait. Unicorns are mythical. Does that mean that the Scottish monarchy was illegitimate all of that time?

Another sign points out that unicorns were not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but they appear throughout Christian imagery and texts. The sign suggested that this was the result of a typo. It said, “When scholars at the Great Library of Alexandria were translating the Old Testament into Greek, they stumbled on the Hebrew word … referring to some sort of powerful horned animal, the scholars settled on the translation monoceros, Greek for ‘unicorn.'”

Religions can be weird sometimes.

The unicorn exhibit is on two levels, the largest section being the upper one. That section is dedicated to the use of unicorn iconography in the LGBTQ+ community.

Like I said, it’s an eclectic museum.

North Inch

After the museum, I walked along a path beside the River Tay. The direction I walked, leads into a large park named the North Inch. You’re probably wondering why a large park has “inch” in its name. A sign by the entrance explains that, in this case, “inch” derives from the Scottish/Irish Gaelic word “innis,” which means island.

This makes perfect sense because the River Tay runs along one side of the park and there is no water whatsoever on the other side or the ends of the park. Wait. What? How does that make it an island?

The sign goes on to explain that this indicates that it was at one time an island on the River Tay floodplain.

“Indicates that?” Really? That’s all they’re going on? Sounds kind of flimsy to me. Maybe someone just liked the word “inch” as part of a park name. Or maybe it was a transliteration error and it didn’t derive from innis at all. Transliteration mistakes happen, you know. Need I remind them of the unicorns in Christian texts and imagery?

The North Inch is very long and reasonably wide. As I mentioned, one side abuts a bank of the River Tay. Most of the interior is lawn, with a few trees, but the two sides are tree-lined. A path runs along the route of the River Tay for most of the length of the park, separated from the river by a row of trees. But at a couple of points, there are concrete platforms that reach out to the shore to provide better views of the river.

The majority of the park is an unfenced golf course. But the park is so big that it still leaves quite a lot of room for non-golf course green space. For most of its length (which is not as long as the park), the golf course is exclusively on the side of the path away from the River Tay, with the path extending the full length of the long park.

At one point, the path pulls away from the river and passes through the golf course. There, a couple of holes are on the river side of the path, and the rest of the holes are on the other side of the path. There weren’t many golfers out today so I had only minor worries about a bad golfer accidentally whacking a golf ball into my head. And my fears of a good golfer intentionally doing so were only slightly higher.

It’s a very enjoyable park, with several benches. I took advantage of a couple of them.

I’ll be in and around Perth, Scotland all day tomorrow. Catch you then.

Aside

A Canal Runs Through It

There is a narrow canal that seems to dead-end at the back of my hotel. That is to say, it seems to do so when viewed from the outside.

In the lobby of the hotel and the adjoining bar, there are some sections of the floor with railings around them and glass on the floor. Looking through the glass shows the canal running through the hotel.

Hotels can be weird sometimes.

If a search engine sent you here after searching for “Perth,” but you wanted information about one of the other likely many Perths in the world, sorry about that. I’m afraid you’re on your own unless I subsequently write about the one you’re looking for. But you’re quite the glutton for punishment for reading this far despite being told up front the subject of this entry, aren’t you? Thank you for that.