| Home |
| Weekend in Edinburgh | |
|
08/12/06 - 08/14/06 - Edinburgh, Scotland (photo album for England & Edinburgh) Our first visit to Edinburgh coincides with the busiest tourist weekend of the year |
|
|
After almost three weeks in Scotland, we finally made our way to Edinburgh. Our home exchangers have an apartment in the city that doubles as shared office space, and we are able to use it when no one else is scheduled to be there, such as weekends. Luckily we were able to take advantage of the apartment, since we picked the absolute busiest weekend of the year to visit. August is the world famous festival month in Edinburgh, with several festivals going on - theater, music, comedy... even a book festival. Sunday was the biggest day, a free event in the park with several stages and 200,000 people attending. So although it certainly made for a lively atmosphere, we did get a different impression of the city due to the crowds. But we did battle our way down the famous Royal Mile (actually 1.3 miles from the castle on the hill down to the royal palace), with the guidance of the Edinburgh Volunteer Organization's free tour. The history of the city is fascinating, going back 1,000 years, and it's amazing to get to learn about it while seeing it up close. We spent most of our time both Saturday and Sunday walking around town getting a feel for what it might be like to live there. In many ways, it feels like San Francisco... it's liberal, "green", full of creative people, truly international, and seems to have about the same weather (sweaters and scarves were worn). When we were tired of walking, we were also able to try out a couple of pubs. Edinburgh has an amazing selection of good places to stop for a drink, definitely a happy place to be for the pub connoisseur. Sunday night we decided to take advantage of the festival by taking in a performance, a stand-up comedian from London. It was a good show, in at tiny venue which we believe was a room in the student union of the university. Then again, most venues are tiny, as there are apparently like 300 venues in town that all have several shows each day. But we enjoyed the show and the festive atmosphere, and are considering going back this week to see something else. On our way back to our countryside home on Monday we stopped at Rosslyn Chapel, made (even more) famous from the end of The DaVinci Code, just ten miles or so outside of the city. Again, crowded as could be, but fascinating to see in person... hardly a square inch of surface inside without some symbolic, interesting or eerie carving. We're pretty sure that there were more tourists inside checking the place out than people attending services on Sundays. Worth a stop though (even at these incredibly high British prices!! seven pounds entry - that's $14 US! per person! and to get the guidebook it's another $8 US! we can't wait to go to Provence and Tuscany where we expect to be the only people who think things seem cheap). Now we're back in sheep country, with just four more days to get our final Scottish experiences in before flying out (without liquid carry-ons) next Saturday. |
Those wacky festival-goers...
People resting in the park between shows, with the back of the Royal Mile skyline in the background No more photos! We forgot our memory card... |
