British Isles Travels-Edinburgh, Scotland

Sitting atop a volcanic crag is Edinburgh Castle which dominates the capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, our next stop. The Royal Mile begins at Edinburgh Castle and the mile long street takes you back to the 18th century (except for all the Genuine Made-in-Taiwan Scottish items hawked in every other shop). We actually loved shopping for Scottish family tartan scarves and kilt pins for our family clans. Many shops have their own kilt tailor and you can have your own family kilt made (we passed--$300 to around $600 per kilt). As we walked along the historic street we came upon the Fringe Festival, the world’s largest art festival. “The Fringe” takes place three weeks every August and attracts mostly performing arts. Our favorite (??) act was a young guy in a speedo on a unicycle with a young woman on his shoulders who was singing at the top of her lungs. The performers could ALL be defined as members of the fringe of society. Strange on the street with 300 year old buildings and closes (alleyways). At home I had found a shop on the internet at the bottom of the Royal Mile that sells only items guaranteed made in Scotland. We walked down, down, down the mile until we found the shop with wonderful Scottish bracelets for our three girls (Krista, Jess and Hannah) and Pictish carved stones for me. Then we had to climb straight back up The Mile, walk to the train station, figure out the correct train to return us to the port, THEN get on the tender to return to the ship. After food and a two hour nap, we did it all again to go back into Edinburgh for the Tatoo. Every August Edinburgh Castle hosts the Military Tatoo as part of the Edinburgh Festival. The Tatoo is a military performance of bagpipers, drummers and entertainers from the British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and International military bands and display teams; this years performers were from New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, South Africa, China and even the island of Tonga as well as Scotland and England. Amazing music and wonderful images superimposed onto the castle walls. We were seated in row 26 (of 26 rows) and the seats were wide enough for a five year old, so we sat side saddled through the 1 1/2 hour show. I was constantly torn between the fabulous music and my sleeping posterior as well as the woman next to me “harumping” every time I breathed. I finally gave up and clapped a LOT so she would KNOW that I was there. We were away from the ship from 5 PM to 1:30 AM (you have to understand that bathrooms were really scarce and no food was available) so the minute we hit the ship we hit the buffet and the bathrooms. Thank goodness the ship expected the 1,000 Tatoo goers to be starving upon their early morning return. The Tatoo was a once in a lifetime event, and for me, I do mean ONCE in a lifetime unless they can come up with seats meant for real adults. OH, I forgot to mention--it poured rain about half of the performance. ONCE in a lifetime! Must say I really did LOVE it despite the challenges. MA