A Lady in London

August is festival month in Edinburgh. With around ten festivals going on at the same time, Edinburgh comes alive with music, street performances, art, literature, food, and the occasional day of sunshine.

This past weekend I headed up to Edinburgh with my boyfriend and our friends from Milan. After a late arrival on the train Friday night, we woke up early on Saturday to explore the city and experience the festivals. Our first stop was the Royal Mile, where we explored the world of illusions in the Camera Obscura museum.

From there we headed down the street on our way to the Scottish Parliament building. On our way we stopped to watch actors, singers, and performers taking part in the Edinburgh Fringe festival. There were people handing out leaflets for every kind of show imaginable; a cappella, drama, sketch comedy, and music to name just a few.

As we made our way through the crowds watching a juggler on stilts and an actor dressed as a dog, we took in the rare sunshine and the beautiful architecture of the Royal Mile.

Once at the Scottish Parliament building, we spent some time exploring the frenzied exterior. Completed in 2004, the building is a gorgeous work of Contemporary architecture. We stopped inside to see a photography exhibition called the World Press Photo Exhibition. It showcased photos from journalists the world over who profiled world events from last year’s war in Georgia to the Beijing Olympics to the US credit crunch.

After the Parliament visit, we headed to Foodies at the Festival, a Taste of London-like outdoor food paradise that our friends had stumbled upon the day before. We spent awhile there tasting everything from whiskey to venison burgers until our appetites for food were sated and our appetites for culture took over again.

We wound our way back towards Parliament and took a tour of its neighbor, Holyrood Palace. The home of Mary, Queen of Scots was full of history and gorgeous furnishings, and the ruins of the adjacent abbey were right out of a Victorian novel.

From the palace we stopped for cream tea at Clarinda’s on the Royal Mile, then headed to the Princes Street Gardens on the way back to our hotel.

Dinner that night was at Fishes in the City, a seafood restaurant on Thistle Street in New Town. The oysters and mussels were amazing, and we drifted off to a pub on Rose Street afterwards with happy bellies.

Our evening culminated with pomp and circumstance at another of Edinburgh’s festivals. This one was the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a show of military bands from around the world that takes place right in Edinburgh castle.

The next morning we explored the Old Town. We started with Greyfriars Bobby, the statue of a dog so loyal that it went to its master’s grave every day for twelve years following his master’s death.

We continued along from there and stumbled upon a stone carving exhibition as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival at the Edinburgh College of Art.

After watching some carving and losing some hearing, we headed up to the funky shops and restaurants of Victoria Street, then to lunch. Our friends had to leave us at that point, so we headed to the castle to take a quick look around, then walked over to Charlotte Square in the New Town to check out the Book Festival.

After checking out the books on display, we headed back to our hotel, then to the Balmoral, Edinburgh’s most famous hotel, for a pre-train drink. Unfortunately, the staff refused to serve food to non-guests, so we didn’t leave with the best impression of the hotel.

We didn’t let that darken our impression of the gorgeous Scottish city, though, and as our train left Waverly Station, we started making our list of things we wanted to do on our next trip to Edinburgh.