Residents of Edinburgh have long been embarrassed by the ‘Tartan Tat’ and souvenir shops which line the otherwise impressive Royal Mile – the High Street in the Old Town, as opposed to the New Town, of Edinburgh. It was reported yesterday in The Scotsman that the city fathers are going to take steps to smarten the area up. Especially so as the Edinburgh Council is the owner of most of the properties! Your can read the article on the on-line page of the Scotsman. It would be interesting to know what visitors opinions are of the state of our ‘Royal Mile’.
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We’ve been to Edinburgh several times and it is truly unfortunate that what visitors see in that area is just basically ‘fake Scottish garbage” and usually all produced in China.
Very sadly there is some truth in what you say.
While it is true that some of the shops are very tacky, and they almost all have the same things; my family and I enjoyed finding “budget” items to take home to friends. Also, some of the vendors at these shops, (mostly Sikhs) were very helpful in answering questions. The shops we went into with Scots working there were less friendly/helpful. Thus, while I agree that there should be fewer of the ‘tartan tak’ shops on the Royal Mile, there is a place for the discount vendors. Not everyone has a million dollors/pounds to spend.