Edinburgh During the Festival

Reasonably priced clean and well maintained accommodations conveniently located within a 20-minute bus ride to the city centre.

We attempted to exchange for the Edinburgh Residence, but gave up since this property has few rooms and very few deposits into RCI. It's apparently almost impossible to exchange for a room here at this time of year.

After investigating several other options, we decided that a self-catering apartment would give us the best value. At this time of year, accommodations are hard to come by and expensive. Even the two star hotels were charging 100 Pounds/night. That's why we considered ourselves lucky to find No. 5 Self Catering Apartments (www.numberfive.com).

They offer a variety of flats. Ours was a one bedroom with ensuite bathroom and kitchen with gas range, microwave, and washing machine. The unit was clean and well maintained. The owners, Judy and Colin Hepburn, were extremely friendly and helpful during our stay.

There is a bus that arrives every five minutes outside the door that takes you right to the city centre. We took advantage of this every day, rather than try and drive in the madness of Edinburgh during the festival.

About one block away is access to the beach, and there is a park right across the street. There are two large grocery stores (Wal-Mart and Safeway) within a 5 minute drive.

There are no attractions near the flat. The biggest benefit here is the easy access to the city. Edinburgh offers a wealth of things to do, including: museums, historic castles, art gallerys, theatre etc. Since the Edinburgh Festival had just started, we were also able to to see a couple of festival shows and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

The Military Tattoo is simply spectacular. If you've never liked pipe music, you might just change your mind after this. Pipe music never sounds as good as when it's being played in a massed band.

The Tattoo features military bands from around the world. The sight of seeing these massed bands of dozens of people playing and marching in sync against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Castle is amazing. Besides the military bands, there was also highland dancing, a stunt motorcycle demonstration, the US Army drill team, and more, all capped of by a performance by "The Lone Piper" and fireworks.

It's definitely not to be missed, but get your tickets early. This year's Tattoo was completely sold out for its three week run. I ordered our tickets in December when they first went on sale.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Scotland right from pre-historic times to the present. You could easily spend a couple of days here. The amount of information is overwhelming. It's impossible to soak it all in. The Museum is modern, although somewhat awkwardly organised. We had a bit of trouble finding our way around the maze of multiple levels and galleries, so we pretty much gave up on attempting to see exhibits in the intended order.

A close was a narrow street between buildings on the main street that led to dwellings behind. The dwellings could be several stories. The poorest families would live on the lower floors, while the higher floors were reserved for the upper-class.

Many of these closes are still open and accessible today. Mary King's Close and several other adjacent closes were covered when the Royal Exchange was constructed. The building is now the city chambers.

The top levels of the close were removed for the construction. Many of the lower levels were reinforced to provide a foundation. As a result, many of the homes that were occupied by the lower class of centuries old Edinburgh are intact.

Originally, only part of the closes were covered by the new building, and families continued to live in the unaffected sections. Eventually, new construction covered all of the dwellings, and the families moved away.

The tour brings you through the houses in the closes that remained intact. They have attempted to recreate the living conditions that would have existed when the houses were occupied, and provide some enlightening information on the plague ridden people who once lived there. It's a very spooky tour.

The tour literature is somewhat misleading. I had the impression that Mary King's Close was an ancient underground city. It's not. While taking the tour you might feel that you're underground, but it was made clear by our tour guide that we were not. Nobody ever lived underground. You are simply inside the bottom floor of an old apartment building that is now completely enclosed within another building. It's still creepy and spooky. The tour, which is performed by guides in period costumes acting out the roles of individuals who actually lived in these dwellings, is entertaining and informative.

They say that the population of Edinburgh doubles during the Festival, which starts with the Festival Fringe in early August, followed by the International Festival, with the Military Tattoo running throughout.

We were there for the Fringe, and it was a madhouse. Depending on your outlook that can be positive or negative. Part of the Royal Mile is closed to automobiles to allow the crowds to roam freely amongst street performers. Just about anybody who wants to can just show up and perform, meaning there is plenty of free entertainment.

It's not all disorganized chaos, however. There are several thousand plays and other shows that are scheduled and require a ticket. The basic idea behind the Fringe is to give performers of all types, with any level of experience a venue to perform, and to be reasonably priced and accessible to the community. Therefore the ticket prices may be only a few pounds, but the quality is hit and miss. There's quite a bit that's good, but a lot that's bad as well. The nature of the Fringe means that you're taking much more risk with your ticket purchase than you might be if you attended a show at the much more conservative (and expensive) Edinburgh International Festival.

The venues used at the fringe are not the posh concert halls and theaters you might be used to either. We saw an adaptation of the Hitchcock film Rope, which was staged inside the abandoned bowels of a building (appropriately called The Underbelly). The show was surprisingly good. The sounds coming in from the street added a sense of realism, while the dark and dank surroundings helped make the subject matter more chilling.

Another show we saw was a performance by a popular comedian by the name of Danny Bhoy. The venue for this show was a festival tent.

We enjoyed both of these shows, but if alternative theatre and unusual venues are not your thing, you may wish to wait for the International Festival.

What a great city! Being from Canada, we were amazed at the history that exists here and throughout Scotland. This was our first trip to anywhere in Europe. We were amazed at the architecture, both its design and by how such amazing structures could have been created so many centuries ago with the primitive (by today's standards) technology available.

The buildings in the old and new towns represent different eras, but they are similar in that they are all pretty much the same height, and every spare inch of space is used. In spite of the uniformity of the building heights, the designs themselves vary. Each building has a unique facade and intricate stonework.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the density of the buildings, the city is very walkable. All of the major tourist attractions are within a few blocks of each other. There is also an excellent transit system available.

One thing that is remarkable is that very few modern buildings exist. Most of the ones that do are inconspicuous as they are designed to appear old and fit in with the existing architecture. This may seem ideal to those of us from North America, where most old buildings have been torn down in the name of progress and new buildings are rarely built with any thought to how they fit into the existing environment. Many Scottish people we encountered, however, craved something modern (even the so called 'New Town' is 200 years old). They were sick of eveything being or looking old. After the initial novelty wears off, I could see how they might get sick of looking at these old buildings all of the time. Many of them are still covered in soot from the Victorian era when everbody burned coal for heat. The atmoshphere can be very drab and bleak, particularily on rainy days.

I doubt that this is a unique situation in Europe, so it shouldn't be used as an excuse to avoid Edinburgh. In spite of Glasgow's aspirations, Edinburgh remains the cultural capital of Scotland. There is a wealth of festivals, museums, historical sites, and shopping to keep you busy for at least a week. The Museum of Scotland/Royal Museum could keep you busy for 2-3 days on its own.

The week we spen in Edinburgh provided one of the highlights of our whole three week trip when we attended the Military Tattoo. The chaos of the Festival Fringe was also exciting. It was a stark contrast to the rest of our holiday, which was spent mostly in the country.