This is the story of my first time visiting my new favorite city : Edinburgh. It’s one of those places I’ve heard of but knew nothing about, not even how to pronounce it.
The weather forecasted rain the entire 24 hour layover, so as soon as we arrived I took a 4 hour nap. I met up with another flight attendant on my crew, Amy, and we headed out to explore around 4pm. It was still drizzling a little so went to get coffee and buy panty hose (life of a flight attendant). The clouds slowly drifted away and the sun came out to make for a beautiful rest of the day. A wee bit chilly.. but at least no more rain.
We walked around not knowing at all what to expect. Turns out, August in Edinburgh is a big deal. It’s their annual month-long festival called Fringe, which is a cultural and arts festival with street performers all over and military tattoo shows every night at the castle. I think it’s the best time of year to visit!
Nearly every building in the city of Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous with medieval architecture. So many cathedrals and castles. Add in the green hills and without a doubt I was in heaven. I had a hayday with photos here, wishing I had more than just my iPhone.
Once the sun set, we grabbed drinks at a few pubs and scouted tickets for the tattoo. (Maybe I’m the only one who thought they meant literal body tattoo ink show, but I’ll clarify anyways.. a tattoo in Scotland is a show put on by military bands from across the world). We tried negotiating with a couple guys and eventually found tickets for $40 a piece. They were only a couple rows from the ground.. we couldn’t have had a better view!
Right as we were walking in, a couple fighter jets zoomed over our heads and around the stadium which is set right in front of the castle. The show opened up with a band from the British Armed Forces playing bagpipes, commencing the start of the tattoo.
There was an announcer narrating the history of Scotland and the founding of different countries, that’s how the show went on with different military bands representing their countries. The performances ranged from dancers, singers, reenactments, kids choruses and full marching bands. It actually reminded me a lot of what you’d see at the Olympics grand opening.
Throughout each performance, they projected images and designs onto the castle. It made for a beautiful backdrop. At the end, an amazing fireworks show was put on above/behind Edinburgh Castle.
After this awesome show, Amy and I went to find food. It was like 11pm, but since we woke up at 4 it was barely dinner time for us. Turns out, everywhere in Edinburgh closes their kitchens at 10 so we ended up getting pizza at a food truck.
On our way back to the hotel, there were tons of pubs with live bands so we stopped into one called The Inn, ordered a couple mojitos, and listened as they played all the best of 80s and 90s songs.
It was a great day in Edinburgh and I can’t wait to go back.
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