Edinburgh Festival Fringe - 2003
Be sure not to miss the Quicktime VR panorama below.
In the airport, before we left
A shot of a sunrise, somewhere over Greenland (though we were so far north that
it never got totally dark)
The meadow on the south side of the old city. There was a festival-related
carnival set up each day I was there.
The Royal Mile (High Street), where performers advertised their shows.
Our venue, on our rehearsal day.
Edinburgh castle
Some local colo(u)r
Another street performer. He pulled the guy on the left out of the
audience and got him to play the role of the horse's behind.
The path I would take into the old city, starting with where I was staying
(second building on the left):
Through the (rather large) meadow.
Up a path and into the city
And into the Grassmarket (where executions used to take place at one time)
The Cowgate area (they used to drive cows through the arch in the leftmost
picture).
Our venue.
The castle from the Grassmarket, during the day (left) and night (right).
More castle pictures
On Wednesday, August 13, I toured Edinburgh castle.
At the entrance to the castle.
Over looking the city.
The Great Hall (still sometimes used for state functions). At 3:00, a
reenactment of a medieval Scottish swordfight between infantrymen from two
Scottish tribes was performed.
Some of the stained glass in the Great Hall.
This courtyard is outside of the great hall. You see, in these pictures, a
military memorial, where the names of all the Scottish war dead from the 20th
century are kept in books that you can look through.
The tower from which the British flag flies (also overlooking the courtyard
outside the Great Hall). Underneath this tower are some preserved rooms, along
with the Scottish crown jewels as the Stone of Destiny (a rock that all
Scottish, and then British, monarchs were crowned while sitting over).
I have my own tower!
A picture of Arthur's
Seat, as seen from the castle, and a panorama from the same vantage point.
Two additional panoramas, from inside the castle, looking north. You can see
Prince's Street and the Forth of Firth.
Some pictures of the castle from the west side. You can see why it has been
a popular place for forts/castles over the centuries.
The Royal mile, just outside of the castle.
On August 14, I hiked to the top of Arthur's
Seat, an 830' high extinct volcano
on the east side of the city and less than a mile from where I was staying.
Click here for a Quicktime VR panorama I took at the top of Arthur's Seat. Scroll to the right to find the meadow and then the castle and downtown. Keep scrolling to see the Firth of Forth (a bay to the north of the city). Note: parts of the panorama will start to display before the entire thing is downloaded, so if it looks a little weird at first, give it a moment to finish downloading.
The old city, seen from a graveyard in the New City (to the north).
One of the gravemarkers in the aforementioned graveyard.
The Greyfriars Kirkyard (graveyard), in the Old City, where 250,000 people
are buried (most illegally)
This used to be a valley. It is now a hill. That's what 250,000 bodies will
do.
A part of the graveyard in which religious dissenters were imprisoned,
without shelter, during an Edinburgh winter, while awaiting trial. The man who
imprisoned them, George MacKenzie, is buried nearby. This part of the graveyard
is supposed to be haunted by the MacKenzie poltergeist.
The Castle, from the Kirkyard.
A nice story. Even an inspiration for a
Disney movie. Too bad it isn't true.
This is the Elephant House, the coffee shop in which J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter
novel.
The view from the window. You can see the Greyfriars Kirkyard and
Heriot's school (which is said to be the inspiration for Hogwarts school)
Heriot's school.
The Elephant
House, as seen from the Kirkyard.
The mountains to the east of town, on my final night.