Welcome to my post about my girlfriend and I's weekend at the Edinburgh Festival.
Each year, the city of Edinburgh hosts a month long Art's festival called the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which attracts millions of tourists from all over the world, and locals alike. For last years festival, my girlfriend and I decided to dedicate a weekend go out and explore the festival.
Firstly we headed to St Andrews Square, just off Princes Street, where there was a few comedy tents and food trucks. We then then took a walk up to the Royal Mile to watch all the street performers.
We love watching snippets of shows that are being advertised on the stages, dancers, singers and comedians draw in the crowds.
We also love watching street acts that make a living from the Festival. Like Clowns, Magicians and Escape Artists that attract hundreds of viewers around them.
The Festival brings such an awesome atmosphere to Edinburgh. To anyone that has not been yet, it is definitely worth a visit!
We then decided to take a wander down to the Princes Street area to see what other acts, performers and stalls were there....when a Portuguese clown, Pedro Tochas, caught our attention.
His act was superb and told a romantic, yet comedic story using 3 members of the large audience that had gathered to watch.
After a great performance by Pedro, we chose to go on a Ghost Tours run by Auld Reekie Tours. These tours begin from outside the Tron Kirk on the Royal Mile. This ghost tour was called the Ghost & Torture Tour.
The tour started off with the tour guide telling us tales of Edinburgh's past and the torture that happened in years gone by, also the many apparent ghost sightings there has been throughout the years, while walking through the old narrow closes of the Royal Mile.
After hearing the ghost stories we were then taken into one of the many 1700’s underground network of vaults, still in their original condition and where each stone, if it could speak, would echo with some of old Edinburgh’s bloodiest and cruel history.
In addition to visiting the vaults we also visited the museum of torture, exhibiting some of the torture instruments from Nuremburg and Bamburg Castles in Germany used in the late 1500's - early 1600's
The tour guide was fabulous at telling us all the stories of old Edinburgh and made us all jump quite a few times!
It was a spooky few hours but we really enjoyed the tour and would highly recommend you take a tour the next time you're in Edinburgh. These tours, as well as others run by Auld Reekie Tours, run all year long.
That was it for our first day exploring the festival, but the following day we were back in the city centre to take in more of the sights. We came out slightly later as we had booked dinner. We once again walked up and down the Royal Mile, watched many street performers before going for dinner.
For dinner we chose, Bella Italia, a great Italian chain, located on the Royal Mile. The food tastes authentic and the staff are always very friendly and helpful.
For starter we had pizza dough sticks, oozing with mozzarella and came with a tomato dip
For main, we both had a calzone, which was amazing! Such a lovely flavour and a great portion size too.
We loved our meal, although it's always really good, we've never had a bad meal and there is always so much to choose from and the staff are always so friendly and helpful.
Once we were finished our meal, it was time to go and watch the Royal Military Tattoo fireworks from the North Bridge. The Tattoo is a famous tradition in Edinburgh. The first official Edinburgh Military Tattoo began in 1950 with just eight items in the programme.
The Tattoo is an annual series of Military tattoos performed by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and International Military Bands, and display team, such as dancers, musicians and actors, on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle. To top it off, each performance is concluded with a fireworks display from the Castle itself.
Below are some of the pictures we took of the fireworks (not too bad for a rainy night, taken while hiding in a bus shelter!)
I hope you have enjoyed my post about our fringe festival weekend.
Have you ever been to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival?
Thanks for stopping by,
Scott
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