07.10.2011 – 07.10.2011  14 °C

I left Edinburgh early this morning for my drive to Glasgow. First stop was to Roslyn Chapel made famous by the Da Vinci Code. Roslyn Chapel was built in the 1400s by William St Clair, Earl of Caithness and friend of the Scottish King. It is also thought that he was a Knight Templar. He built his chapel as a personal place of worship and even today the chapel is owned by the St Clair family.

The chapel is famous because of its grandiose carvings. Every wall, pillar and even the roof is covered in thousands and thousands of carvings. The chapel itself is not large and in fact is probably one of the smallest churches I’ve been in on this trip but even with its small size the sheer volume of carvings’ just knocks you over. Fortunately, your admittance price covers you to join a guided tour of the chapel, so my first stop was to hear all about the different carvings and their meanings and more importantly the mysteries that surround the carvings.

If you are a Dan Brown fan you will recall from the book that the central characters thought that Roslyn Chapel contained the body of Mary Magdalene and potentially the chalice of Christ (Holy Grail). The thing I love about the whole story is that no-one knows what is stored inside the chapel. See, the fascination with the chapel is the fact that the crypt that is below the chapel is easily as large as the chapel itself! The crypt was sealed up well over two hundred and fifty years ago and the St Clair family won’t allow anyone to desecrate the crypt so until they agree to open the crypt no-one knows what is stored below!! Maybe there are many secrets contained below.. I’m pretty sure there will be St Clair graves! I guess the interest in the crypt below is created because the carvings in the chapel make it really quite mystical and even creepy!

I had a creepy episode in the chapel. If you stand in the middle of the chapel you are supposedly standing in the place where two meridian (energy) lines intersect.. Now I’m happy to tell everyone I’m a complete sceptic but I’m also pretty gullible…. So I stood in the right place and I’m not sure if it is the power of suggestion but I swear to you that I could feel a real heaviness in my chest (like I couldn’t breathe) and felt really funny in the head (almost dizzy like). Now I know everyone reading this is going to tell me its all in my head and look maybe it is but maybe it isn’t……… I do know that after leaving the chapel it was a good twenty minutes before I felt totally back to normal…..

But back to the carvings.. Unfortunately there is no photography allowed in the chapel so I couldn’t take any photos, if you’re interested you are going to have to use trusty google. Most of the walls are covered in a weaving of vine leaves. As you walk every meter or so the vines are intersected with a face that is known as the ‘Green Man’. He can be recognised as a male face with intertwined vine leaves as a moustache. There are apparently well over a hundred and ten ‘Green Man’ face carvings in the chapel. He is a pagan symbol and symbolises re-generation, re-birth etc.

In the front of the chapel (this part is called the Lady Chapel) there are two pillars that are very intricately carved. One is called the master’s pillar and one is the apprentice’s pillar. The story goes that the master carved his pillar (which looks a bit like a Grecian pillar that you would find on the Parthenon) and then when he was shown the designs for the other pillar (which is a spiral design) he decided he wasn’t a good enough carver and so told the designer that he would need further carving training in Rome to be able to complete the pillar. He was therefore shipped off to Rome where he stayed for four years learning the trade to create a spiral looking pillar. Meanwhile, his apprentice decided that he could carve the pillar and so whilst his master was away he carved the spiral pillar. When the master returned you can imagine his ire to find that he had spent all this time away and the pillar was finished and the glory of the pillar all went to his apprentice. It is then said that he took his master’s hammer and bashed the apprentice dead, supposedly in the half complete chapel! The master was sentenced and was hung in Edinburgh.. so the designer then had to go and get more masons!

The other interesting thing in the chapel is that there is supposed to be a tune carved into hundreds of little boxes that adorn the roof of the Lady Chapel. Apparently, if you ‘crack the code’ to the boxes you can learn the tune and then if it is played on a certain day, at a certain time, with the right instruments the mysteries of Roslyn will all be revealed. Supposedly a couple of guys ‘cracked the code’ a few years ago and the tune was played by a medieval music group but unfortunately no secrets were revealed…. So either they haven’t cracked the code or they played the music on the wrong day or at the wrong time or……….. its just a load of hog wash! Regardless, it’s a good story and it could be some sort of musical tune (because each row of “music boxes” also has an accompanying figurine that are all playing different looking instruments) so who knows??

The last creepy things about the chapel (although to be honest there are heaps.. google to get the whole list!) are found in the part of the crypt that is still unsealed and on the RHS wall of the chapel. Inside the bit of the crypt that wasn’t sealed up is a tomb marker that clearly reads it is for a Knight Templar (knowing my luck though the family made one to look old and put it in the crypt just to give people a thrill!) apparently it is fair dinks and is from the second crusade (which I think was about 1200 AD?). There is also supposedly carvings on the RHS wall that are supposed to represent storks of corn. Now why this is interesting is that Columbus discovered America more than fifty years after the chapel was complete……. So did a St Clair ancestor go to America before Columbus and hid the secret????? Or is it like I suspect, that it is nothing because in my opinion it looks nothing like corn kernel storks and this “mystery” is just another load of rubbish………………………

Either way I guess I like so many other millions of tourists get a huge kick out of mysteries and we are all keen to “crack the mysteries of Roslyn!” and be the one to be showered in glory!! To be completely honest though hoax or not Roslyn is a very incredible work of art and is worth a look if for no other reason than to oggle at the incredible carvings that were done almost five hundred years ago!

After my heart/ lungs got back under control and the dizziness faded (I’m fair dinkum by the way, I’m not joking, I really did feel really strange… strange enough that I chose not to drive until the feeling had passed!) I continued on my journey to Glasgow. Considering Edinburgh to Glasgow is about forty minutes drive and it was only lunch time I knew I had plenty of time for site seeing in Glasgow and my main place of interest was the Kelvingrove Museum and Gallery.

My digs (the Glasgow YHA) is right above Kelvingrove and is on a hill that is ringed by this gorgeous park. For the first time in a while the weather was agreeable, cold but at least the sun was shining so I took great pleasure in strolling through the park to the museum. The museum is just incredible! It is this huge palace like structure that was built back before the turn of the last century to house a museum, so for me it was almost a case of forget whatever works of art etc are housed inside, the building itself was worth a look!

I have to say that once I got over the incredible beauty of the building I was equally impressed with the works of art and exhibits contained inside. The museum is famous for a Salvador Dali painting Christ of St John of the Cross. It is probably one of the most beautiful pieces of art I’ve ever seen. The colours and the form are just exquisite! I spent quite a while sitting in its little room just checking it out! The gallery also boasts a number of works by the French Impressionists and a very interesting piece by Botticelli, it is interesting because it really feels quite 3D like! (which for a work created in the 1500s is pretty impressive!) Aside from the great pieces of art contained inside the building, I was equally impressed with the way the curators have tried to make art appealing to all walks of life. This gallery is not just corridor after corridor of paintings. They are carefully arranged by genre but more importantly the curators have made an effort to explain to all what the artist was most likely trying to convey. So it gives you little snippets about how the colours used affect the impression of the painting (and in one exhibit it gets you to filter the painting using different coloured pieces of glass to show the impact of colour). It is a very ‘hands on’ art gallery which I think is refreshing. It was certainly entertaining for the many kids that were inside the gallery!

I finished off my day by going down to ‘main street’ Glasgow and having a really good plate of Marinara pasta and glass of cider.. (I’ve become quite partial to the UK’s cider…) What a great way to end a really great day!