On our final day in Edinburgh, we took a bus tour (I hate bus tours), but got to go through a Scotch distillery and learned a bunch and tasted a little.   We also got to see some nice Scottish scenery and only had to wait twice for people running late (one was the driver). I hate bus tours.

Part of our tour was to watch the military tattoo in the grounds surrounding Edinburgh Castle and it was pretty interesting.  Military and other honor guards, bands, performance groups from around the world.  A bit like a cross between “its a small world” and a marching band competition.  One from Scotland had 250 bagpipers in a variety of kilts  –  all very colorful and patriotic.  Glad we went.

 

In the last couple of days we listened to some traditional Scottish  music in a pub, ate haggis with neeps and tatties, and had some blood pudding for breakfast.  Haggis is not nearly as bad as I imagined and I would eat it again.

 

 

We also got to see the little coffee shop where several of the Harry Potter books were written, and the meandering street that was the inspiration for Diagon Alley.

 

 

To balance things out, when we got to Dublin today, we went by Sweny’s Pharmacy, which was mentioned in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”, and has been kept  in much the same state it was in when the book was set in 1904.  No, I have not read the book.  In fact, have still not finished a Harry Potter book yet either

We really enjoyed walking around Edinburgh, going to the shows and just enjoying the city.  We agreed we would enjoy visiting  again, but maybe not during Fringe, just to get a different experience.  And see some other parts of Scotland.

I will post some more pictures from Cathy’s phone once iCloud syncs overnight.  She takes better pictures anyway.

 

 

 

It wasn’t awful.  Actually, it was offal.  Sorry.  Dad joke.

 

 

 

 

It’s Wednesday morning, August 8th. We are waiting to leave for our tour of the Scottish Highlands and I thought I would recap the last few days.   We have attended nine different shows since Sunday and have really enjoyed them.

We saw a number of interesting acts including The Bubble Man.

 

And met some interesting people.

Even world leaders:

Her are a couple more pics to give you an aides of the feel,of The Fringe:

 

 

The old town of Edinburgh  is built along a ridge and there are long narrow alleys that run perpendicular from the Ridge. They are called “closes” and are named after people who lived in dwellings along the close or activities that went on in the close.

We had a decent tour of the a preserved close that gave you an idea of the dwellings that used to front on to the closes with up to twenty people in a room and a bucket for a toilet.

 

We had a great first day in Edinburgh.  The overnight flight was uneventful and we landed about 7 am. We were not able to check-in to the hotel so we dropped off our luggage and spent some time at the nearby Holyrood Palace – the official Scotland residence of “Her Majesty the Queen”.   Didn’t see her.  Here are a couple shots of the outside of the palace:  no photos inside allowed.

Credit; Cathy szelistowski

After a THREE hour nap, we went exploring the city.  Edinburgh has a large “old town” that looks like something out of Harry Potter (more on that later).  The touristy main  road through old town is called the Royal Mile and is lined with kilt and tartan shops, restaurants, and bars.  One one end is the palace and our hotel.  On the other is Edinburgh castle. Most of the street performers for the fringe festival are along here and they are everywhere.

Rubbing the toe for good luck.

They give you a preview of many of the shows around the city. The actual performances are scattered at locations across the old town of the city.  There are over 53,000 shows across 300 venues during the month.   We saw one show today; an improv show from Baby Wants Candy” a ‘completely improvised, full band musical”   It was a lot of fun and a good start to the week.  We have tickets for about 6 more shows over the next 3 days

Food so far has been good.  This pig provided our lunch and we had some nice pub grub on the main drag:  venison stew.

Looking forward to trying some haggis and sticky toffee pudding sometime during the week.

More later

 

 

Doing our final checklist to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. It looks like the weather will be between the high 50s to 70 degrees. and some rain.

We will be spending the first 5 days in Scotland doing some sightseeing and attending performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.   It is a month -long performing arts festival throughout Edinburgh.  There are street performers, music concerts, comedians, and theater productions.  Here are a couple shots from previous years.

The next 10 days will be spent on a tour of Southern Ireland with Little Gem Tours.  It will be just me, Cathy and our tour guide.  Quite a splurge but we are really looking forward to it.

 

More to come once we get there.

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see this?

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton