Edinburgh - Fringe Festival Edition

I have proclaimed Edinburgh my most favorite city in the whole wide world, and last weekend it kept it's #1 standing. (Disclaimer: I haven't been to a lot of places!)

Not only is the city absolutely beautiful, we had tickets to the Military Tattoo (more on that in a future post), we visited Holyrood Palace and had a surprise encounter with Leonardo DaVinci's anatomical drawings (more on these items in another future post), AND the Fringe Festival was taking place. What is the Fringe Festival, you ask? Well, Bill & I really didn't know until we got there. 

Fringe Event Posters Plastered EVERYWHERE

Turns out, the Fringe festival celebrates music, theater, and comedy. Things were literally happening EVERYWHERE you looked! In fact, as we were winding down our last full day we stumbled upon three more large venue spaces with theaters, food courts, etc. that we had not yet seen - and we had seen a lot! We wished we had known the size and scope of the Fringe festival so we could have planned our trip a bit more, but sometimes stumbling upon things is the most fun of all. 

On Sunday we saw three one-hour plays that were all quite good. The best was a powerful one-woman show about a young woman training to be on UK's first ever olympic boxing team. The play was call Bitch Boxer and the writer/actress was Charlotte Josephine. I hope we get to see a lot more of her on TV and in the movies - she was awesome!

Drumming up Business

You had to pay for many of the shows, but people were out drumming up business (sometimes literally) for their shows with pamphlets, short street performances, etc.

There were pipers, of course.

And a group I could have listened to all day.

Bill liked the band from the photo above better, but unfortunately I didn't get a video of their performance. We also saw fire jugglers, "comedians" (I think the good ones didn't have to drum up business), and much, much more.  

I want to go back and experience the Fringe Festival again, but I know the next time won't hold that magic of discovery. But it will still probably be awesome. 

PS Look at me, gettin' all fancy with the video blog!! :-)