To the Edinburgh Fringe with Friends

Flyers from the Fringe, and busy Royal Mile headed away from the castle

Edinburgh, the nearest large city to Dundee, is famous for a number of things. Edinburgh Castle, for example, one of Scotland's most popular tourist attractions, and one heck of a Hogmany celebration (so I've heard; having small children tends to put a damper on going out in the middle of the night).  But Edinburgh is also home to no less than 12 festivals (for details, check out the Festival City website) most of which take place during late July and most of August, drawing tourists from far and wide.

Perhaps the best known festival is the Edinburgh Fringe, "the world's largest arts festival."  If you have an act and can find a venue willing to host you, you can perform at the Fringe.  There are, according to the official programme, 460 venues, which could be anything from a bit of the sidewalk (we were at Venue 252 - Outside the Tron - Hunter Square) to a full performance space. Up and down the Royal Mile, passer-by were assailed by advertisements for shows - from officially sanctioned "previews" of shows up on small stages (we saw a few numbers from Chekhov with Cherries, a musical take on the plays of Anton Chekhov - I wanted to go see the full show but it definintely wasn't appropriate for children) to hundreds of people in costumes (walking ten feet down the Royal Mile, I saw the entire high school cast of a production of the Canterbury Tales, then several aliens handing out flyers and posing for pictures).

Friends in Dundee told us that going to the Fringe was an experience, and that we should be prepared for large crowds, and bring our own food because there would be impossible lines just to buy a sandwich.  So when we decided to go with our visiting friends the Brodskys, we chose to go on a Monday (hopefully a bit less crowded than the weekend) and also a day where the weather was iffy (not too hard to find in Scotland). So we set out:

Posing at the Dundee train station

Our train was busy, but we had seats and arrived to Edinburgh without incident.  It was sunny (for the moment) so we took advantage of the weather and had a picnic in Princes Street Gardens before tackling the Fringe.

One person happy to pose for a picture

We had planned to head to Cowgate (one street up from the Royal Mile) where there was a "Free Fringe" venue offering several free children's events.  But by the time we finished lunch and walked up to the Royal Mile, it was pouring rain, dampening our enthusiasm for pushing on to Cowgate. We decided to split up, sending one of our party to Edinburgh Castle, the dads and most of the kids to the Camera Obscura & World of Illusion museum to dodge the rain, and me and the wee one off to explore the Royal Mile.

Checking out the outdoor mirror at the Camera Obscura museum

It being Scotland, as soon as we parted ways and most everyone disappeared inside the museum, the sky cleared and it was a bright, sunny day.  I took this picture from the stage area of the Royal Edinburgh Millitary Tattoo to prove it:

Millitary Tattoo seating in front of Edinburgh Castle

Then I walked down the Royal Mile toward St. Giles cathedral, along with many hundreds of others with the same idea as me: let's see what we can see of this festival for free.

Swarms of people near the cathedral

I ultimately ended up in the shadow of the cathedral, watching a pretty decent blugrass band (Monticule) play on a tiny stage.  They had an audience of perhaps 25 people tapping their toes and buying their mini-CD. 

Monticule concert; C sad face because I had just told her I had no water

After their set, we retired to the National Library of Scotland for water and a blueberry muffin - I always appreciate the public places in cities, like galleries and libraries, but with the craziness of the Fringe I appreciated them even more - the National Gallery of Scotland and the National Library of Scotland met our bathroom and cafe needs throughout the day.

After meeting back up again, and enduring another rain shower, we finally made it to the Cowgate venue, only to find that all the kids shows were done, and the only available free shows were not suitable for kids. So we sat down and ate some popcorn, as you do.

We then moved on to the abovementioned "Outside of Tron" venue to watch three street shows in a row, all of which involved unicycles or other high perches, flaming torches, and razor-sharp knives.  Only one of the shows, however, involved a kilt and gold lamè underpants, and before you ask, no, I didn't get a picture.

Brodskys watching one of the unicycle-torch-knife street shows

Finally it was time to head home.  By this time the weather had turned beautiful, with no sign of the squalling rain of earlier in the day.

View from the train station entrance: Ferris wheel and Scott Monument

 Even the train station featured a bit of Fringe activity- an art installation to see us off.

Train station art

Despite the rain, we had a lovely day at the Fringe Festival. We decided that to truly experience it, you would need to spend approximately 24 hours moving from show to show (and indeed, with shows scheduled at all hours, you could spend 24 consecutive hours at the Fringe).  But instead we hopped back on the train and took ourselves and the kids back home, ticking "Go to the Fringe with Friends" off our (quasi) imaginary Scotland to-do list.