Europe Trip 2023

Edinburgh during the Fringe is super busy but that’s not to say you can’t find quite alleys and calmer spots. Especially if you get into the city before lunch from the lovely planted Aberdour Station, which we did since it was our only full day exploring the city. We started by sourcing a coffee and found the first Long Black we’d seen on a cafe menu - V’s favourite coffee so we were hopeful…it unfortunately, did not pass the taste test. We took our coffees (my cappuccinos are generally better) and walked up the Royal Mile to the Edinburgh Castle where the line was already setting up for the first 9am booking. I’d decided a few days before that it wasn’t worth booking the entrance after having already seen some beautiful castles & palaces and planning on seeing a few more in France etc. so I was happy to have picked this super busy one to miss. Regardless, the castle is so epic from around the outside and I think the view of it from New Town area is the most impressive where you can see how it’s towering over the city, latched on the edge of the cliff. We wandered back through the Old Town past the Writer’s Museum, reading some quotes of poets (Vikum had been reciting the freedom speech from Braveheart so we of course had to get a photo with “Fredome is a noble thing” quote). As suggested on the local tour audio guides, we listened to the day prior we decided to head to the free National Museum of Scotland…and can I tell you. This is the coolest museum that ever museum’ed. I can not believe it is free, I think I could go back 100 times. Here we went through the levels of the ‘Scotland through time’ sections plus a scattering from the rest of the building before making our way into the Level 7 terrace at the top of the building which gave us almost 360 views over the city and surrounding hills/scenery, along with binoculars which was very cool. It was hot though. A really warm day, so we couldn’t stay on the roof too long. If not just because we’d bake but we were also getting hungry too so we wandered along the street to the Pie Maker bakery. Endless interesting and delicious flavours, so we grabbed 4 items and shared all of them: Original Scotch Pie, Haggis Roll, Macaroni Pie, and a Tradional Pasty. A first taste of haggis which was so yum though I’m not sure if it’s representative of what haggis is by itself. Guess I’ll need to go back to Scotland just to have more haggis, stand-alone. We then wandered some more where we watched a busker doing a one-man comedy basketball act which was somehow simultaneously very funny and anti-climactic, which I thought felt like the perfect experience of watching a busker at the Fringe. To really drive home the 100% Fringe Festival experience which I’d heard about for many many years through watching hours of British comedy…was randomly seeing two very popular comedians walking past us in the street after leaving the busking: Nish Kumar and Ed Gamble just wandering through Old Town past us. Gamble being one of the two hosts of my favourite weekly comedy-food podcast “Off Menu” and comedian that I had seen perform stand-up just a few months earlier in Auckland SkyCity. It felt surreal, not just because I’d now seen him literally on opposite sides of the world, but also because I’d literally just listened to the 200th episode of their podcast on the bus trip to Edinburgh a day earlier so I selfishly stopped them in the street, fangirling quickly to say hello, shake his hand and let him know I’d enjoyed the show he’d done on the other side of the world. Anyway, moving on we killed some time walking around the city, enjoying the sun at the park, and getting a bevvy at the university “Library Bar” that was recommended by cousin Livvy who just got accepted for uni entrance - hooray 🍻 And, followed that with the best shawarma ever before going to the comedy show I’d chosen the day prior in one of the “Bunkers” in the Pleasance Courtyard location. It was a good choice: a very funny and meaningful stand up hour “Darran Griffiths: Inconceivable” which was right up our alley and a great end to the day in Edinburgh. Finding our way back to the Waverley Station we headed back to Aberdour where we had a stunning view of the bright sunset reflecting off the firth from our train on one of the 3 huge bridge crossings. Then more sun setting over the rolling hills, and a calm seaside walk back to our hotel. We enjoyed the shortbread and fudge we’d saved from the night prior with a cup of tea and headed to bed before an early start to catch our taxi booked for the airport drop-off.Read more