Scotland

I loved Scotland – the cities, the castles, the tall stone buildings, the hills, the lochs, the heather, the sheep and the accent.
Edinburgh was fascinating with its maze of overlapping streets and tall stone buildings, the turrets and towers on ordinary buildings and the masses of chimney pots. The place oozes history – battles, plague and witches. JK Rowling comes from there and we saw where she used to sit to write the first Harry Potter book. The view she took in and places she created are just what she could see and the inspiration for the Hogwarts School. Sean Connery, Ian Rankin and Muriel Spark the authors, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also come from there.

But further north through into the Highlands to the heart of Scotland you get to the untamed hills, moors and lochs. It is like stepping onto the set of Monarch of the Glen. It is very picturesque - every view is a pattern of purple heather, moss covered stone walls, lush green fields, blue lochs and dark green forests. It is wild, unchanged and beautiful. There are distilleries everywhere and unique Scottish ales in the pubs. I could stay there much longer. The villages are stone, small and quaint, and the people are friendly and just a little crazy which probably comes from living in such an out of the way and extreme place – who else would have national sports of caber tossing, hammer throwing, haggis tossing and wellie tossing – all wearing kilts!

Edinburgh would be an interesting place at any time of the year with its tall stone buildings and amazing castle perched on a rocky crag – but especially when they have their festival.
The FRINGE Festival alone is enormous and over-whelming. There are hundreds of performances covering music, theatre, dance, opera and lots and lots of comedy. There are some great permanent venues, and a lot of purpose made venues. Shows run from about 9.30am to 4.00am in some locations and 1000s of people come from all over the world to join in the fun. I have heard more Aussie accents here than anywhere in Europe. The performers also come from all over the world including Tripod (who Max saw), Adam Hills and Sammy J from Australia.
The city takes on a very theatrical atmosphere with actors doing their stuff, ghost tours, witch tours and performers on every street corner. There are fantastic buskers everwhere – wild Scottish clansmen playing bagpipes and drums, suit-wearing Korean wrap dancers, fire juggling tight rope walkers, people juggling chainsaws, clever magicians, a vacuum cleaner playing a sax, and acapella singers – and they are all free or just a donation.
Over 3 days we saw some fantastic shows. Terrific dance from Czech and England, excellent theatre comedy from Korean and England, great stand up comedians from Australian and England and some good Spsanish and Scottish music, as well as a few pretty terrible comedians (English!) - but on average we managed to see more good than bad.
But for anyone who is interested in going to the Edinburgh Festival don’t be tricked by the fact that it is held in summer – it has been freezing and wet. It didn’t dampen anyone’s sprits though.
We also found a great and cheap place to eat at the Mosque Kitchen, behind the mosque. Meat or veg curries and rice or nan bread for just 3 pound. So with breakfast provided at the hostel and a big curry each day, we managed pretty well.