FRINGE BENEFITS
T here are three essential things you must bring to Edinburgh if you visit during festival season: comfortable walking shoes, a good plan and, of course, a sense of humour. Actually there’s a fourth – a good raincoat wouldn’t go awry.
I brought all four on a visit last August and each came in very handy. The first is absolutely vital, as you will be doing enough walking to throw a FitBit into overdrive. Events take place all over the city and due to traffic and crowds, the easiest way to get around is on foot. It’s also the most enjoyable as you are guaranteed to stumble across incredible street performers or an impromptu singsong. Be warned, however, the footpaths do get very crowded – especially when passengers disembark from the cruise ships or you pass the café where JK Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book – so leave yourself plenty of time to get around and be patient.
The second takes work but is worth it. I’m not the most organised person in the world, especially on holiday, when I feel I should be totally relaxing, but if you don’t draw up a semblance of a plan before you go, you will miss out on so much.
I cannot recommend highly enough the Edinburgh Festival City website, edinburghfestivalcity.com – once your flights are booked, this should be your next stop. It features information about everything from accommodation to food and drink, and the all-important festival programmes.
Our main focus while in the Scottish capital was the Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival, though the International Festival, the Art Festival, The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the International Book Festival all run in August too. Thousands of shows take place around the city every day and I think even if you stayed for the entire month, you’d still leave feeling like you’d missed something.
From theatre to comedy, circus to cabaret, opera to spoken word, there’s no art form left unrepresented.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give for the Fringe is to try to get along to the opening galas at the various venues.
These last about two hours and feature shortened performances from a large number of the acts who will be appearing at the venue throughout the month, so you can decide if there’s anyone you’d like to see more