Mary King's Close

We spent an hour touring Mary King's close which is essentially located under the city hall today.  In the 1800s, the city basically leveled off all the buildings at the elevation of High Street added arched vaults to reinforce them, then built new structures on top and turned them into basement areas.  Because it is government space, we could not take pictures : (  It was quite something to imagine living in the narrow confines of the close (alley) with several hundred other people, with no sewers (other than the street itself), and no vented chimney space.  Its no wonder the plague ran rampant through the city 14 times.  At one point over half the resident in the close died from the plague.