Unlike London, this was my first time in Edinburgh. I didn’t know a lot about the city before this trip, but I’d always heard amazing things about it.
One thing I definitely didn’t know was that during August there is a huge (like really huge) arts festival called Fringe. I had never even heard of it before my trip and only found out what it was the day before leaving London to head up to Edinburgh. What I found out after getting there was that Fringe is absolutely wild and intense. There are constantly dozens and dozens of shows happening at any moment and in all kinds of venues, many of which are makeshift venues like coffee shop basements and restaurants. And the shows are all over the map, they are musicals, improv, standup, poetry, comedy, one-person shows. All kinds of stuff! Fucking wild, I tell you!
Basics
I arrived by train after 10pm and was exhausted. I had made the most of the day in London before getting on the train and was ready to go to bed. Unfortunately, it took me a little while to find my Airbnb. It was very conveniently located in Old Town, but it was just down a weird two level street that I totally didn’t understand at all.
When I got to my Airbnb, my host was hanging out in the kitchen with one of the other guests, a German woman from Berlin named Claudia. She really wanted to go out and see some live music and have a beer. The two of them convinced me to go with them and off we went. I didn’t want to stay out long, but I figured it’d be a nice way to experience nightlife stuff, especially since my time in Edinburgh was limited.
We hit up a music venue with a Scottish ska band playing (yeah, ska) and grabbed some beers. From there, we went over to a standup show around the corner. This was a man and a woman each doing sets. The woman, Megan Shandley, was very funny. The guy was also funny until he made a transphobic joke and then I was over him.
Getting around Edinburgh was very easy on foot. Everything I wanted to do was walking distance from my Airbnb. And it’s a very beautiful and old city to walk around so it was perfect.
I only had two full days in Edinburgh (aside from the unplanned late night my first night there). Had I known about Fringe, I would have probably wanted to stay a full week. At least. There were dozens of shows I wanted to see, but I could only do so many in my limited time there.
My Airbnb was kinda not amazing. I mean, it was located in a very good location for seeing stuff and the host was really nice, but it felt a bit dirty and the apartment reeked of a place where smokers lived for years and years. It served its purpose though.
Running
I had two runs planned for Edinburgh, but thanks to being out late the night before, I missed the first one. Luckily, that was just a four-miler so it wasn’t too big of a deal. And this was pretty much the only planned run I entirely missed without making up throughout my whole trip.
The second planned run for Edinburgh was the one I was most worried about during the trip because it was a long run of 15 miles. I knew I had to get it done, though, so I made sure nothing stopped me. The day before, I went on Strava and joined an Edinburgh running group for women and asked if anyone would be interested in making a new friend and running with me. To my delight, someone actually did! I was really excited for this!
We met up for an afternoon long run. Edite and I ran about 11 of my 15 miles together. We started around Holyrood Park and ran around Arthur’s Seat while climbing the tough hill there. Then we made our way down to the beach, where I would have never thought to go on my own. It was a nice mix of scenery. After heading back from the beach, we made our way around another park before we split ways. I finished up with a couple laps around the park to round out my 15 while trying _really_ hard not to shit my pants because my body decided it HAD to 💩 and this was going to be non-negotiable.
Overall, it was a really nice run besides the poop stuff and I was so happy to have a made a new friend for it!
Food
I think out of all the places on my trip, I had the most places to eat saved in Foursquare for Edinburgh. There were so many restaurants, pubs, and coffee shops I wanted to try.
My first real meal was breakfast at Hemma. It was superb and just what I needed after my hike of Arthur’s Seat. The food was great and so was the atmosphere. For an afternoon snack, I stopped at Shakeaway and got an amazing milkshake to enjoy while walking around the city. I followed that up with tea and a sandwich and scone from Forsythe’s Tea Room. The tea was good, but the food was pretty meh. To be honest, the experience was a little too kitschy old Scottish grandma for me. For dinner, I had a burger and fries from The Holyrood 9A and washed it down with a delicious beer.
The next morning, I started my day off with coffee and avocado toast from Brew Lab Coffee.
That evening I did a pub crawl and mostly just had a random sampling of bits of food throughout. The pub crawl was fun, though. I made some new friends and drank a ton of beer. I think we went to six pubs and nightclubs. Each one gave us a free shot and then had drink specials. By the end of the night, I was quite drunk. So much so that I was still drunk when I woke up the next morning for my flight to Berlin. Awesome. LOL.
The crawl started at The Inn on the Mile and then we went to Pilgram Bar, The Whistle Stop Barber Shop, Frankenstein, Sneaky Pete’s, and The Hive. Frankenstein was a bit more wild and crazy than I’m into these days, but the karaoke was at least entertaining to watch. The Hive and Sneaky Pete’s were more like nightclubs which is definitely not my thing, but I still had a good time dancing with my new friends and having some really interesting political conversations with people from all over there place. The Pilgrim Bar and Whistle Stop were both more my speed, though. I’d definitely go back to those places.
Activities
As I mentioned above, hit up a standup show my first night. The show was at Just the Tonic in one of their smaller rooms in the back. It honestly was just a cave, hence its name, The Cave. It was kinda neat though! The ska band I saw right before was at Stramash which is basically next door.
The morning of my first full day in Edinburgh, I slept in much later than planned. This was thanks to my late night. I had planned to run up Arthur’s Seat. However, that plan was made before I actually knew what Arthur’s Seat really was. It’s a very old dormant volcano! I ended up hiking up it instead and, to be honest, I’m glad I didn’t try to run. I don’t think I would have made it. There were some people I saw who did run up, but it was wet from the rain the night before and extremely slippery. Definitely didn’t feel like running would have been safe. Just hiking it felt super sketchy. On my way done, I chatted it up with an older couple. The woman lived in the UK for the last 30 years, but was originally from the US. She ended up being great company for the hike back down. The view from the top was truly beautiful, though! And I was also lucky enough to get up and down just before the crowds started coming out.
While I missed my run, the hike absolutely felt like it more than made up for the four miles I had planned.
Next up for the day was the free SANDEMANs walking tour. This was a fantastic tour of mostly Old Town, including Grassmarket, Greyfriars Kirkyard, Flodden Wall, and a bunch of other stops. I learned a ton about the history of Scotland and Edinburgh. The tour guide also pointed out some of the graves in Greyfriars Kirkyard that JK Rowling used as inspiration for Harry Potter. He pointed out the inspirations for Hogwarts as well. One thing the tour guides had been asked to stop doing was taking people to the grave of Tom Riddell, but he had no problem telling us where to find it after the tour.
From the end of the tour, I made my way down to New Town to explore on my own. On my walk over that way, I walked around Edinburgh Castle and stopped for a few minutes to watch a street performer playing songs for a small crowd. He asked where I was from and I replied that I was from New York (easier than saying Jersey City). From there, he went into two great anti-Trump ballads for me. This was a recurring theme from my every city of my trip, Trump and the USA are a terrifying af joke.
I walked around West End and Multrees Walk. I also went up into the Scott Monument. This was really rad, but also a little scary because of how tight and steep the spiral staircases were. There was only one way up and down and it got a bit crowded at points where it was hard to pass people without being afraid you’d slip and tumble all the way down. Still, the views were great and every time I thought I was all the way up, there was another staircase to discover to go up even higher.
After this, I was handed a flier for a small improv show happening nearby. I decided to check it out since I had some extra time. And I’ll just say this, it was bad! It was three dudes who were not good at improv at all, but it was at least entertainingly bad until they made three transphobic jokes in rapid succession.
Last up for the day was the SANDEMANs Dark Side Tour. This was a exploration of Edinburgh’s more gruesome past including murder, people being buried alive and coming back from the dead, grave robbing, torture, witches, hangings, body stealing, people being crushed to death by falling coffins, and all kinds of other morbid stuff. Personally, I loved the tour and thought our guide, Sarah, was amazing. She was animated and passionate and an amazing storyteller. This tour also made for a great companion to the free tour earlier in the day as it went into more detail for a few things that were only briefly mentioned.
I started my second day off with a nice long walk to Summerhall. On the way, a guy was out front of a cafe handing out fliers for his poetry reading, and because I wanted to take as best advantage of Fringe as I could, I stopped in to check it out. Unlike the improv show the day before, this was really good. The reading was in the basement of the cafe with just a handful of people, nice and intimate. The poet’s name was Ben Ray and not only was his poetry good, but his reading of it was light and entertaining.
From the poetry reading, I made my way to the start of another guided tour. This was a tour of Edinburgh Castle. The tour included the obvious history and a nice overview of things at the castle. I absolutely got more out of my time in the castle than I would have without a guided tour. Afterwards, I hung around a bit to explore before heading out to go meet my running partner for our run.
After my run, but before the pub crawl, I stopped in for one more show. This was again at The Caves at Just the Tonic. This show was called Tracey Tracey and was a one woman tragi-comedy by Nicola Cross. This show was super weird, but highly entertaining with just a bit of crowd interaction. I enjoyed it a lot.
Final bits
For just two days in the city, I feel like I really packed a lot in. I was non-stop running from thing to thing and on the go without much rest. I really wish I had had more time to go to more Fringe shows. I ended the weekend there with probably three dozen fliers for shows, a good half of which I’d have liked to have seen.
I will absolutely have to go back for longer some tine in the future.
Below are my check-ins on Swarm. Some of them aren’t places I went into, but instead were just places I was at or walked by. Some places I was just stealing wifi or using a bathroom. And some, I checked in multiple times as I passed them more than once.
