Mercat tours underground vaults

Today the group visited the Mercat underground vaults on a ghost tour. This attraction provides a historical tour with an element of spook. The tour guide Liz provided authentic storytelling using a candle to add a hint of creepiness to her words. This attraction comes at a reasonable price of £10.The tour is leaves from The Mercat Cross,High Street beside St Giles High Kirk and opposite the City Chambers. I would recommend this tour for anyone with an interest in ghosts or the history behind Edinburgh.

You can book online, by telephone, in person at the Mercat Cross, an eight sided monument just downhill from St Giles Cathedral on the High Street, or from the Mercat office, or buy advance tickets from Tourist Information Centre on Princes Street.

This tour is very interesting but for most people this is not spooky or scary. I give it 8/10.

Mercat tours

The group visited the Edinburgh Vaults on the South Bridge. The cost of the attraction is £10 for an adult £8.00 concessions £5.00 kids £25.00 family. The tour lasted one hour fifteen minutes but time flew past. The guide was called Liz and she was well...... crazy but good. There were four ghosts to be found in the Vaults. They were the cobbler, jack, the watcher and Boots. After we went to Starbucks which I thought was a rip off. I give the Vaults 2 and a half stars out of 5 as I expected it to be a bit scarier and I did not see any real ghosts.

Surgeons hall

Today the group visited Surgeon's Hall. The purpose of this attraction is to show people the history of Surgery and you can find the Surgeons Hall on Nicolson Street. When we were there we saw a lot of specimens and pictures. The guide was very helpful when I was confused because he told us alot of information.

Surgeons hall

Today the group visited Surgeons Hall. The purpose of this attraction is so that people can learn about the history of Surgery. You can find Surgeon's Hall on Nicolson Street in Edinburgh. When we were there we learned a lot about Burke and Hare. We also got to hold an endoscope and handle a knife that was about 200 years old. We were given a tour guide I would recommend having a guide to anyone who goes there as he explained all the items very clearly.

Surgeons Hall

Today the group went to visit Surgeons Hall in Edinburgh.
The purpose of the attraction is to teach people about the history of medicine and surgery in Scotland in the last 500 years.

It is located at Nicolson Street in Edinburgh.

When we where there we got to see so much cool and gory specimens and we got to hold real Victorian surgical instruments. 

It was so cool I could have spent ages in there.
All of that history and we only scratched the surface, it's magnificent.

I was amazed by just how preserved the specimens were, how much detail and definition was there, the science behind it all even hundreds of years ago. The fact that a lot of the science and ideas of modern medicine were sound they just didn't have the technology to make it happen, it was nothing short of amazing.

The guides name was Thomas. I though he was pretty good although he did spend a lot of time talking about Burk and Hare the body snatchers, although that is not surprising considering the Burk and Hare exhibition seems to be one of the most popular exhibits and possibly one of the most known in connection with the museum.

My favorite part, well to put it simply, everything, the whole shebang. every minute, every step was a new wonder just waiting to be discovered, to be seen, to be learned. I don't think my eyes could have been wider with wonder, contentment, with thirst for knowledge if you had taped them open.

The tour roughly cost about £5 a person and open 12pm till 4pm Monday to Friday and from 29/3/14 till 17/05/14 the museum will be open from 10am till 5pm 7 days a week.

I think the museum would appeal to almost anyone except maybe young kids, (it might be a bit to gory and scary for them.) but it would appeal especially to anyone with an interest in science and/or medicine, the place is a gold mine of knowledge.

i would give the Surgeons Hall Museum a 10/10 because it honestly blew my mind, it's an astonishing place.

It is an experiences i will never forget and will hold dear for the rest of my life.

 Jodie. :)  


   

Surgeon's Hall

The visit to Surgeon's Hall was the one many people in the group were most looking forward to especially as they had heard all about the Pathology department which we were getting to see around. The museum was tucked away up three flights of narrow stairs with no lift so unfortunately it is not very accessible to those with wheelchairs or mobility issues. There are toilets as you enter and a room with exhibitions about the history of dentistry where we saw old sets of false teeth which had been made with someone's actual real teeth! In the main hall we saw some models of body parts such as hands and legs where wax had been injected to show the blood vessels. It was quite fascinating to see the number of blood vessels and how delicate they were.Our tour guide was called Thomas and the group all agreed he was very good. He was very enthusiastic about the museum, answered all questions and knew a great deal. He told us about the story of Burke and Hare and John Knox. Burke and Hare had murdered people for a year and sold the bodies to Knox to experiment and teach with at Surgeons Hall. We saw the famous book that is said to be made of Burke's skin. Thomas led a handling session where the group examined a range of surgical items from history. We were surprised at how brutal amputation was and that the quicker the surgeon could be the more business he would get. The group also liked the story about the Chloroform parties held when inventing this. Some of the instruments and medicine had actually not changed much over time though. After this we went in to the Pathology department where we saw a range of preserved body parts suffering from different illnesses and examples of different wounds sustained in wars over the century. We found it quite disgusting but also fascinating. The museum is soon to close for a makeover and to get a lift put in. We would all like to come back when that is done. The vast majority of the group enjoyed this attraction and learnt more that they did not know from it that our previous visit.

Surgeons hall museum

Today the group visited Surgeons Hall The purpose of this attraction was to show people all about the history of medicine and surgery. It is located on Nicolson's street in Edinburgh. When we were there we saw preserved brains and body parts aswell as different types of old surgical equipment. We found out they injected wax into parts of the body to show the blood vessels. We also learnt about the two friends Burke and Hare that used to dig up graves for money. It seems though that they actually did not dig graves but just went straight to murdering people and selling the bodies for money. The guide was called Thomas and was excellent. He was very clear about everything, was enthusiastic about things, knew a lot and answered all our questions. My favourite part was looking through the old 3D goggles. The things I thought were not so good were seeing all the different brains and looking at the limbs and parts of the body with cancer in them. I found this quite gory. The attraction cost £3 for under 16 and it was £5 pound for over 15's. It was well worth the money because it was good to find out things I didn't already know. It took us about an hour and a half to have a look round things. The attraction would most appeal to tourists and basically new people to Edinburgh. Afterwards we went to the festival theatre for a hot chocolate - its much better than the hot chocolate from the last café!