Enjoying the Fringe - Edinburgh!

Shortly after Mum and Randy left, we went off for a weekend to Edinburgh. The summer was slipping by quickly, so we decided to take a train Friday after work and check out the town for the weekend. Not only was the fringe happening, but we had heard a lot of good things from others that had visited. 

The Fringe is an annual festival that happens in August. It is one of the biggest arts festivals in the world. They have everything from music, comedy, plays, dances, street performers to tricksters. I think they are most known for the comedy though. Most events are 1 hour so that you can fit in many throughout the day. 

We got in pretty late on Friday, so it was early to bed and early to rise! When we got up on Saturday, we headed toward the castle and got some really good breakfast on the way.  On the way to the castle, we stumbled across this market that is held on Saturdays. 

It turned out great with the castle in the background!

 

A few more pictures on the way to the top!

The queue was too long to wait that morning, so we headed back down Royal Mile. It was quite pretty with the historical building and the mix of the modernness of the Fringe all around. 

We saw the Scottish Monument

This Man of Danger was our first street performer... 

he laid on a bed of nails and some man stepped on him... 

You can tell by just looking at him that he is crazy!

Next we wondered into an old church was had been turned into a bar and live much was playing. This event was free and a great place to rest the feet and figure out the next moves. And as a bonus... he was actually pretty good!

Later that evening, we had bought tickets to events that we wouldn't normally see. They turned out great! We arrived early, so we hung out in the  BBC tent beforehand. 

The first event was a dance that was a dance performance that focused on the animalistic side of humans.  There was very little sound to the program, but it was really powerful and the dancers were great.

Jeff and I love some good Jazz so when I saw this guys was playing I was excited. On his description blurb, he had played for a few celebrities so I had a feeling he would be good. Pretty interesting guy... check out how long his hair is too - It almost touched the floor!

The next morning, we learned our lesson and bought tickets online and were able to skip the queue at the castle. It gave us some pretty awesome views of the city!

We also got to see the Scottish Crown Jewels! Here is a picture outside that building in the castle. They were not as impressive as the Crown Jewels in Tower of London..... but they did come up quite often in the big Scottish debate recently (Ps Thank goodness Scotland voted no!)

After the castle, we wondered around a bit and 

we stumbled across the oldest pub... love this sign! 

We ventured over to the Scottish Parliament and got a great picture with Arthur's Seat in the background. We had no idea the Scottish Parliament would become such a topic of the news in the weeks to follow... otherwise we would have been sure to get a picture of it.  

Overall - We enjoyed Edinburgh! I hope we get to see more of this 'United Kingdom' :)