I have kind of fallen in love with the Edinburgh International Book Festival this year. In addition to hosting lots of interesting book-themed events, it’s a charming place to hang out, to meet friends for a drink. Browsing the onsite bookstore
to do in Edinburgh
Edinburgh: the giant, stinky, misshapen-penis flower
Big, smelly excitement in Edinburgh this weekend, as a titan arum (also known as amorphophallus titanum, or giant misshapen phallus) blooms for the first time at the Royal Botanic Gardens.
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Edinburgh: Nighttime at the Botanic Garden
As if trying to prove to us that ever-earlier darkness isn’t such a bad thing, Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden is putting on a special nighttime event this month.
Spookiness at the Edinburgh Dungeon
We’ve been alternately curious and skeptical about the Edinburgh Dungeon since we moved to town, so when we were invited to check it out, we gave it a go.
Edinburgh: tea in the afternoon
There’s a meal that exists here that hasn’t existed in any other place we’ve lived. It occurs in the afternoon, as the name would imply. The consumption of actual tea, however, is entirely optional.
Edinburgh: Dean Village and the Water of Leith
Edinburgh is full of surprises. One minute you’re in a bustling city center, and the next you’re wandering down a shady trail, surrounded by trees and hearing only the sounds of the nearby stream.
Edinburgh: Scenes from an open-top bus tour
Like most tourist-centric European cities, Edinburgh is full of open-topped double-decker hop-on-hop-off bus tours.
Question Time at the Scottish Parliament
Down at the lower end of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, across the street from the queen’s summer house, you’ll find the architectural anomaly that is the Scottish Parliament. You’ll have no trouble picking it out from the surrounding medieval buildings that make up Old Town.
Edinburgh: experiencing the Scotch Whisky Experience
On our recent bout of being tourists in our home town, we headed up the Royal Mile to the Scotch Whisky Experience. Edinburgh itself doesn’t contain any whisky distilleries, so tourists in the city seeking knowledge of Scotland’s great liquid usually end up here.
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Edinburgh: learning the secrets of the Royal Mile
There are a plethora of walking tours on offer in Edinburgh, with good reason: it’s a highly walkable city, bursting with history, architecture, and monuments all within a relatively compact city center. In the months since we’ve moved here, we’ve walked all over the place, but always in the disorganized manner of those who are not on a walking tour. It was time to change that.