Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. City Guide
For over 20 years, Pamela Lanier's Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. Travel Guide has been your connection to Edinburgh's tourism community with invaluable details on local attractions, restaurants, shopping, museums, history, outdoor recreation and more.
Events
 The annual Edinburgh Festival is a 4-week series of official and independent festivals starting in early August. The most famous of these events is the Edinburgh Fringe, the largest performing arts festival in the world including theatre, comedy, music, musicals, dance and children's shows. The Edinburgh Military Tattoo is a show given by military bands and display teams, drawing over 200,000 live spectators to the Castle. The Edinburgh International Film Festival, established in 1947, is the longest continually running film festival in the world. Other smaller events that occur during the Festival period are the People’s Festival, the Jazz Festival, and the South Asian-inspired Edinburgh Mela.
Later in the year the city comes alive during the Winter Festivals, featuring the month-long Edinburgh’s Christmas, Britain’s largest Christmas festival, and culminating with the world famous Hogmanay street party on December 31st. Of the many ancient traditions connected to Hogmanay the most revered is the First Footing. First to set foot in a house after midnight should be a tall, dark stranger (not fair like a violent Viking raider) bringing good luck along with a lump of coal, whisky, and the traditional Black Bun, a very rich fruit cake, made with raisins, currants, finely-chopped candied orange peel, chopped almonds and brown sugar with cinnamon and ginger.
The Beltane Fire Festival is held on May eve to mark the beginning of summer on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, inspired by the ancient Gaelic festival of Beltane. The modern festival was started in 1988 by a small group of enthusiasts with academic support from the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Three hundred volunteer performers celebrate the end of the Scottish winter and the start of the season of new growth with drumming, fire performance, revelry and a procession around the hill. |
