A Day At The Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Greetings Travelers

In this post I would like to share the footage and photographs I shot at this years Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.

Each year for the whole month of August Edinburgh is home to the worlds largest street party and gathering of artists from all over the world.

Its a great time to visit the city , you will see some of the strangest and most wonderful sights wandering the city at this time.

As the video above opens we see 2 "silent discos" passing by. The idea here is that each member of this mobile disco is wearing a headset and everyone is listening to the same song.

The first song we hear this merry crowd sing in unison is "Good Feeling" by Avicii and then "You Gave Love A Bad Name" by Bon Jovi.

One of the shows we came to see was a John Denver tribute which was held in a small venue at the back of this Italian delicatessen. Photography wasn't allowed during the show but I did get this nice shot of some of the produce.

After the John Denver tribute show we decided to have lunch in this Italian restaurant which was right next door to the delicatessen.

The restaurant offers a 3 course lunch menu for £7.95 which is fantastic value especially by this cities standards.

While we waited for our food ,I enjoyed a pint of lager and lime and these placemat's which depict scenes of life in old Edinburgh.

My starter was a simple but nice enough couple of slices of garlic bread. I went for the sausage pizza as my main meal. It was tasty enough for the low price. I would rate it a solid 7/10

My parents both had the pasta carbonara which they both agreed was good value for the low priced lunch menu.

For dessert all 3 of us had this Victoria sponge cake with cream and ice cream. The lunch menu overall was good value and I would recommend Jolly's restaurant to anyone who is in the area looking for somewhere cheap to eat.

It seems this restaurant was once the scene of a rather unique incident. A run away fire engine crashed through their window after hitting 12 other vehicles and flattening a bus stop!

The restaurant's décor is wonderful.

One of the street performers I got on video was this guy .His act mostly involved juggling and other circus tricks.

This talented artist is painting a tiger...

While a band plays along the street...

This Giraffe statue was one of 20 that were placed around Edinburgh during the festival. The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland partnered with Wild in Art to create these statues. This one appears to be inspired by Sherlock Holmes as the author Arthur Conan Doyle lived in Edinburgh.

These giraffe statues are permanently here outside the Omni centre. There names are Martha and Gilbert ,they were made out of scrap metal by an artist called Helen Denerly and placed here in 2005.

This wonderful venue is part of the Argyll Bar near the Meadows area of the city. We saw our second show of the day here which was my mothers friend Andrea Carlson. Andrea comes over from Philadelphia for the whole month of August to play shows. She is a jazz guitarist and singer song writer as well as an incredibly talented artist.

This is a collection of shots advertising some of the many weird and wonderful shows happening during the festival. Tales from a hunted bookshop sounds interesting. I will keep an eye out for that one next year. .

These next few shots show some graffiti I spotted while wandering around the town.

This one isn't Graffiti ,its a beautiful unicorn mural which was installed for the festival.

This statue of Greyfriars Bobby stands across from Greyfriars pub and cemetery where the dog and his master are buried. Bobby was a Skye Terrier who lived from 4 May 1855 – 14 January 1872. He famously guarded his masters grave for 14 years up until his death. You can see the statues nose is shiny and gold ,this is due to the many visitors who rub his nose for good luck. It is asked that people don't do this as the statue will eventually be damaged, the statue was placed here the year after bobby died so its been here since 1873.

I always feel sorry for the great men who are eternally honoured and remembered by statues like this only to spend there days covered in seagull poop. Seagulls have no respect at all...

The Scotland shop is the place to go if you want a stuffed Loch Ness monster toy :).

Unfortunately this years festival was held at a time when the people who empty the bins went on strike. Huge bins like this lay overflowing in the street for weeks...

On the way back to the bus station for the journey home I headed down the historic Scotsman steps.

As the sun was setting and I walked past the Walter Scot monument the sound of bagpipes ,drums and electric guitar filled the air of Princess street.

This band had just started playing....

When a elderly Gentleman collapsed , apparently this was caused by the high heat .On this day we experienced record breakingly high temperatures. I think this fellow had a little to much to drink and the heat was to much for him. The police made sure he was ok and sent for an ambulance and gave the band the all clear to keep playing.

The video above ends with this fantastic band playing some wonderfully upbeat tunes. A perfect end to a good day out in this wonderful city.

As Halloween draws nearer I will be back in this most haunted of cities for some spooky adventures .Stay tuned for some ghost stories , haunted pubs and a trip to Grey friars Kirkyard in October!