While I was living in London, I visited many far far away countries. Scotland was just too near, I guess. I kept telling myself that I could go anytime. But time passed by, and I decided that I would go back to France. So, a few months before my departure, in August, I travelled to Edinburgh (and later to Glasgow).
A Bit About The Fringe Festival
When I booked my stay in Edinburgh, I thought that the hostel was quite expensive. But I didn’t dwell on it as I really wanted to go. When I arrived in the city, I understood why it was that expensive: I had booked my trip exactly at the moment of the Fringe festival!
For those of you who don’t know what it is, the Fringe is a festival of performing arts, like comedy shows for example, that lasts 3 weeks in August, in Edinburgh. It’s not a recent festival, as it started in 1947. The story is that there was an International Festival in Edinburgh at the time that was created to celebrate and enrich European cultural life after the Second World War. What happened is that 8 theater groups were not invited to the festival and didn’t like that. Never mind, they came anyway and started to do their shows on the fringe (or on the edge if you prefer) of the International Festival. Hence the name.
Should You Go To Edinburgh During The Fringe Festival?
Despite being an expensive time to visit Edinburgh, it’s a great opportunity to see many eclectic shows. Some are buskers, I bought a great CD from a Polish guy playing in the streets (Wojtek Gasiorowski, in case you want to know). Some are free, some are not, but a lot of shows are really not that expensive and it’s worth going.
To me, music shows were the best, because stand-ups were sometimes difficult to follow. I didn’t know how to choose which one to attend because I didn’t know any of the comedians. And then, when attending, I had trouble laughing at their jokes because most of them were based on British culture.
Anyway, if you have the opportunity, I suggest you to go and see for yourself. There’s great energy and it felt safe.
Bus Tours To Save Your Energy
Even if you don’t come during the Fringe festival, there is a lot to do and see in Edinburgh. If you feel like having a slow day, you can take a bus to visit the city. I like the hop-and-off buses because you can see all the big places in Edinburgh and never get lost.
There are a lot of them, most with audio guides available in different languages. If your English is good, you can take a bus with a live guide, it might be funnier. Some audio guides tell you horrible stories about the city (there are books written by Terry Deary that are quite interesting and actually funny).
Walking Tours To Hear Edinburgh’s Best Stories
If you speak good English and like walking, you can book a walking tour with a local guide. (There might be guides speaking your language as well, you’ll have to check.) I think it’s a great way to discover the city and ask for advice about where to eat or what show to attend. I think I did this free walking tour: https://edinburghfreetour.com/. Free walking tours are also great to make friends.
A walking tour helps you get a grasp of the city. The free walking tour shows the places of interest like the Grass Market and the Greyfriars Cemetery. For those of you who like Harry Potter, there are some graves in there that might have inspired J.K. Rowling. There is also a cafe where she wrote when she was broke.
A Ghost Tour To Chill In The Evening
If you liked the horrible stories, you might like to try a ghost tour in Edinburgh. I sure did!
In Scotland, cemeteries are beautiful and serve as parks too. There are several gruesome stories to hear about the city, about murders, disappearances, grave digging and such. In the evening, I recommend following one of these tours to shiver a little bit and laugh a lot.
A Lot More To Do In Edinburgh!
Other activities not in tours include visiting the castle of course (not too impressive in my opinion), climbing to Arthur’s seat and going to museums like Camera Obscura & World of Illusions.
Well, I hope that this article made you want to visit Edinburgh! One of my friends is planning on going there and asked me if I had written an article about the capital of Scotland. So this is for her and for every one of you who wants to go. I plan on writing more about Scotland in the next weeks.
To see more photos of the United Kingdom, you can visit the gallery United Kingdom.
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