’26 Aug: Edinburgh, Scotland

Luna discovered that her train was going to be delayed so she quick like a bunny went to the train station, rerouted herself, and got home early. It was So Great to be able to get together!

But first we swung by a delightful Farmers Market just around the corner from our place in Stockbridge.

And then we had breakfast.

And then Luna went to the train station and we tidied up the place, did laundry, figured out timing for tomorrow, and went to sleep early in hopes of waking up refreshed and ready to go go go.

This looks like, but isn’t, our third accommodation in Edinburgh.

Luna arrived from London around 10 and right away we went off in search of where we could catch the HopOnHopOff bus but before we could actually locate it we ran into this crafts fair and both Windy and Luna were drawn to it as moths to a flame.

He was selling homemade soap with lovely scents as made by his grandmother. What a cutie.

Luna had just dyed her hair red and this handmade fabric crown simply had to be had.

The church next door.

Here is the key to the HOHO location, and we gladly Hopped On. I forget where it was we Hopped Off and then On again, but we made good use of our tickets and very much enjoyed the views and the commentary.

Some pictures from the HOHO.

Yup, a couple blocks of the Royal Mile during the Fringe Festival although locals we’ve talked to say don’t be fooled, it’s always like this.

Late lunch/early dinner, and YUMMY.

Here come many many pictures of buildings, not particularly famous ones, but to get a feel for Edinburgh.

Below is another one of those multi-stage venues and we stopped in because what seemed like a good show would be starting shortly.

But before the show we went into the lounge and listened to this guy for a while…

…driving Windy and Luna to d.a.n.c.e.

The first comedian made us laugh and because it was easy, we stuck around for the next guy playing on a nearby stage.

And now, walking back to our accommodation, we passed by 1000s of huge buses taking daytrippers home, and the castle warmly lit from the golden hour.

Nighty night sweet dreams.

Stockbridge is a trendy neighborhood in Edinburgh where we happened to end up when looking for accommodation for our last few days before leaving on the tour. Below is a feeling for the neighborhoods of Edinburgh. You might remember from a few days ago, Edinburgh sits on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, which is a large tidal estuary that opens directly into the North Sea.

We spent the day kicking around Stockbridge.

We took a walk along the Water of Leith Walkway, which was delightful.

Access from and to the Walkway.

We had a very good meal here…

…and our favorite Sticky Toffee Pudding so far, and our third to date. We were making a study of Sticky Toffee Pudding. We are now done with this experiment and are moving on to another dessert.

A small sample of the main drag in Stockbridge.

First we treated ourselves to a two hour massage and we both agreed it was Top-Notch.

We timed the massage to work out that we could get to the Flemenc-OH! show and it was fabulous. I caught a shot just as they were wrapping up for their curtain call.

The audience from the flamenco show.

Our seatmates invited us out for a drink.

A stroll along the way home.

And dinner in a Scottish pub!

Above, I actually took that picture. There are two St Mary’s here. This is the Episcopal one and there is also a Catholic one. We picked this one because it was closer and what a good choice that turned out to be because…

(What are these?!)

…because they were having a harp concert! Remember yesterday we happened into St Giles when they were having a harp concert and now this one. Windy was floating on air! These are internet pictures of the interior and the harpist because the church was full and the concert was happening the whole time we were there.

The one on the left is the Catholic St Mary’s and the one on the right is the Episcopal St Mary’s, where we were.

Outside our accommodation.

I guess you’ve got the idea by now of all the posters and flyers around town. This was just our second day, and as the days go by you talk to more and more people, mostly people in line, and get their recommendations, to help narrow down the 1,000s of shows available to the 10 you might have time for.

We’re going to track this one down for sure.

Constructed between 1811 and 1814, this building was originally St George’s Church but now they use it for the National Records of Scotland.

The formal name of the portrait museum=National Galleries Scotland: Portrait.

We like portrait museums because they usually tell an interesting story in chronological order.

We ate lunch here at the museum and it was delightful as museum cafés often are. Later in the evening we ate yummy leftovers and cereal and milk.

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Windy really wanted to see this performance and it wasn’t far from our accommodation, however it started at 9:25pm and I was done in with all the walking in the past many days. So much walking. So Windy took herself to the show and had the most fantastic time.

We moved today from our place in the outskirts of town into probably the nicest accommodation we’ll be having. It might be the most fully equipped and well-appointed place I’ve ever stayed in. It was supposed to be an easy walk to everywhere but not so easy for me.

I was mistaken in my sense of how far things were from each other and how hilly it was. We had to store our luggage (check-out 10, check-in 4) and from the train station we headed out for The Royal Mile (“it’s so close, no problem”) but before we got there I thought, we might as well stop for some food! And at that moment we came upon Grand Café and thought sure, why not. It was lovely and tasty too.

Our destination, The Royal Mile, is the road leading up to the castle. We got halfway up the mile before I punked out and we never even saw the castle, but that’s on the plan for the day after tomorrow. The entire distance of The Royal Mile is pedestrianized and swarming with people who want you to take their flyer and to convince you to see their show and with people strolling along, waiting to be convinced. It is all high spirited fun and everyone is happy. That’s what I say, everyone.

The city is papered with flyers on almost every surface.

St Giles Cathedral located in the middle of The Royal Mile, below photo from the BBC. It’s very old and of course there’s more history than you want to read here. AI gives us a quick summary: “St Giles’ Cathedral, located on Edinburgh’s famous Royal Mile, was founded around 1124 by King David I and has served as the physical and spiritual heart of Scotland’s capital for 900 years. Often called the “Cradle of Presbyterianism,” this iconic building has weathered wars, fires, and religious revolutions. While it is widely known as a cathedral, it is technically the High Kirk of Edinburgh because the Church of Scotland does not use bishops.”

Looking out at today’s crowd being entertained by a guy juggling fire. For some reason I didn’t get him in the shot.

Here are a few of the stained glass windows that surround the building.

It seems every public building participates in the Fringe. She was a joy and Windy, a huge fan of the harp, couldn’t believe her good fortune to come upon her.

Below, the thistle is the national symbol of Scotland. While it might seem strange to choose a sharp, prickly weed as a national emblem, they like to say the thistle represents the fierce, tough, and independent spirit of the Scottish people.

And speaking of thistles, this is the Thistle Chapel “a small but breathtaking masterpiece located in the quiet southeastern corner of St Giles’ Cathedral. It serves as the official, ceremonial home for The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle. which is Scotland’s highest and oldest order of chivalry.

This couple were married here 40 years ago and they couldn’t be happier than to spend their anniversary at this very spot.

And the traffic cones? It has become A Thing around Scotland.

I looked up some statistics:

For the 2026 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, August 7-31, there are over 4,100 to 4,300 scheduled shows. Because it is an open-access festival where acts are constantly registering, the official program started with 3,649 shows but grew rapidly to more than 4,200 unique acts and productions by the time the festival began.

These acts add up to roughly 55,000 individual performances taking place across nearly 300 venues throughout the city. Most of the venues support multiple shows throughout the day. Performers have traveled to Scotland from 74 different countries to take part.

We ordered up some Thai food for dinner which was ok but not particularly to my taste. Then we ate the leftovers for breakfast.

266 feet, is that a lot of elevation? I was Done In by the end. And no, 266 feet is, according to Gemini “a very small amount for a hike, equal to climbing about 26 flights of stairs.” And how it feels depends of course on how quickly you make the elevation. But Gemini, please, I do not climb 26 flights of stairs!

The shore-side path.

And now heading Into The Woods.

We ran into so many dogs everywhere. I can’t remember going anywhere so far and not finding dogs.

One of the very few hand rails along the way.

I asked AI what is this and can we eat it. The reply: commonly known as Dryad’s Saddle or the Pheasant Back mushroom, you can eat it, but you won’t want to since at the size of this specimen it will taste like a shoe.

This plant has a lot of names in Scotland all for a reason – Rosebay Willowherb, Fireweed, Bombweed, even Singerweed.

We were headed here, to Hillend Tavern because it looked cool in the pictures, and it was cool inside too, and they had all the beverages, but sadly, I didn’t check the menu, which was probably because they don’t have a menu, because they don’t have any food, except you can buy a bag of chips! So we had our pub beverage and then had to move on for food.

This dog came by to ask for pets. There were several other dogs in the pub too.

So we continued on to The Compass where they were serving Sunday Roast, a Sunday tradition in the UK (and UK influenced countries). It was much better than the picture! They even went ‘in the back’ to scrounge up some cranberry sauce for the turkey. From the top – Yorkshire Pudding, parsnips, an odd square of dressing, potatoes, peas, broccoli, turkey, creamed cauliflower, and gravy. And we shared a Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert.

The exhaustion of the walk and the huge meal meant we were totally not up for a walk back. Since it’s almost impossible to get transportation on a Sunday and particularly where we are out in the hinterlands we were so lucky that one of the guys working at the restaurant knew a guy he could call and in 20 minutes or so we were back at home-sweet-home ready to run a load of wash and pack up for tomorrow’s move into the city.

I touched his little head and he closed his eyes, laid his head on my hand, and did that nighty night dog snort. Oh my goodness.

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Windy really wanted to see a guy she follows on youtube who was playing at the fringe so she bought tickets for the day after our arrival and off we went. The number we had at the condo for taxis was disconnected, uber said someone would be in touch within 10-9-8-7-14-13-20-21 minutes. It wasn’t promising, so we hit the streets and hailed down 4 buses that happened by, who were helpful but ultimately not That helpful and finally the last guy said get on, we’re going to the train station and it’ll take you right there.

Once at the train station everything went swimmingly until we got into town and were swarmed by the busses, taxis, and tourists, a sea of tourists. We had left 3 hours early but to reach the show even close to on time we had to take a taxi from the train station.

We made it!

Below is his flyer. All these flyers represent 2% of the shows happening at the Fringe Festival which I’ll talk more about later.

John Scott of the Sweary News.

We picked a condo in a distant land for our first three nights thinking we’d just hang around, rest, enjoy the gorgeous walks, and get time-changed, which is what we are going to do tomorrow. This is the bus that took us to the train. All the bus drivers did try to help but they weren’t going in our direction. They did kindly elucidate with words and gestures what we should do. I think we caught half of it.

The train ride was lovely as everyone around was chatty and happy to tell us things. It was charming.

A mural in front of the train station in honor of one of the bridges…which I will talk about next.

Oh look, a carnival.

Folks on the train wanted to tell us about the bridges and it was so interesting. You can see them here in chronological order. If you’re interested you can click on this 3 Bridges website for details, not too much, just enough.

We can see all three bridges from our balcony.

Looking in the other direction from the dining room window. People bring their dogs down here to frolic in the water and then roll in the sand. They really love their dogs in Scotland.

We were in town for a short time, enough to have a pretty tasty dinner and when we wanted to take the leftovers home they said no, sorry, we don’t have a license for take-away. Does this happen often, we asked. Not so often, she replied.

Looking up.

Just around the corner.

The statue depicts William Chambers, a renowned publisher and former Lord Provost of Edinburgh standing directly in front of the Victorian-era building of the National Museum of Scotland.

Again, the National Museum of Scotland.

Three+ weeks with carry-on. You go Windy!

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Shock-o-rama I heard my name floating through the cabin, who’s saying my name? Oh my goodness it’s Alex from Crystal who I haven’t see in 23+ years! Oh my goodness is right! This is the long-haul part of the trip – LA to London and Alex is going home for several weeks to hang with friends and relatives. 23 years, and are we not as cute as ever we were.

It’s a quick hop from London to Edinburgh, and on arrival it was cool and windy, and I was SO happy not to be hot. Windy put on her coat but I stood in the wind, in my spaghetti straps, arms out-stretched, taking it in. Check out the guy in his kilt!

The taxi driver from the airport dropped us off in a completely wrong complex and we wandered around for a very long time until a kindly neighbor helped us out and even carried our bags up the many many stairs. Thank you kind neighbor! And this cat with his own entrance and exit. Hey guy!

I was done-diddy-done-done but Windy still had enough gas in the tank to walk 20 minutes to a local mini-mart, get us some treats, and walk back. Awesome babe, and then bed.