Although Loch Ness is the most famous mystery in Scotland, Edinburgh, the capital, also has its share. Villa Nina, the Guest House on Leamington Terrace is only ten minutes walk from the city centre. It is a solid, nineteenth century building in Fountainbridge, the district where Sir Sean Connery was born.

The guest house is clean, comfortable and serves a very good breakfast. It is also haunted, though little is said of this, unless it is treated as a joke by owners, Bruno and Rosa Cecco.

Edinburgh has its own dark and mysterious past from the great fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson to the criminal deeds of the grave robbers, Burke and Hare. In this atmosphere, it is fitting that the kettle in the room switches itself on at night, however irrational this is. Reason is not enough to explain how this reliable machine was switched on.

The night I stayed there, I found it hard to sleep after the strange event. Furthermore, this strangeness seemed to continue the next morning when I hear Cecco singing a German song, though this was explained easily as he had lived in Cologne many years before.

To scape this surreal feeling, I went for a walk to explore this city which offers art, literature, gastronomy, theatre, comedy and history. The castle dominates the Old Town, the area of tiny dark streets.

I returned to the house, enjoyed a nap and had an excellent cup of tea, typical of Great Britain. I fell into a deep sleep, aiden by tasting some whiskies but again I was woken by the kettle. Unable to sleep again, I went to breakfast the next morning tired and drawn.

Cecco met me with concern and when I explained the events he paled and became unusually quiet. I went out after breakfast and spent the day worried. A nervous Cecco met me on my return. He told me the story of the real owner of the building, a nineteeth century British major who had returned from Africa with a wide-range of weapons and a love for tea. A servant was killed while cleaning a weapon which had been left loaded and he cursed his master as he died. The major it seemed still reamined in the hotel with his love for tea. Cecco explained his earlier reaction, informing me that people in the pasthad asked for their money back because of the disturbances in the room.

I felt that mistery had enriched my experience and after sharing a drink, I promised to return, a promise I still intended to keep.

There are 450,000 inhabitants in Edinburgh and an unknown number of ghosts.