Monday, September 01, 2008

Edinburgh, Scotland

We are back in the UK and decided to hoof it up to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a few days to see the last of the Edinburgh Arts Festival. It is an internationally renouned annual city wide art event that spans all of August and includes dance, comedy, art, music, theatre and probably more. The city was enchanting. There were musicians on so many street corners I lost track of them all. Harpists, violinists, brass bands, bag pipers, and a jazz band. The whole city is small enough to wander around, but large enough to host an amazing art scene. I spent the time treking from gallery to gallery. My favourite shows were at the Collective Gallery (pictured above) combining comedy with performance art while the Fruitmarket Gallery featured brilliant installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. There was a great promotional event called the Art Late Running Tour put on by the festival. We signed up for it. It was meant to be a whistlestop tour of some of the gallery highlights. No one actually believed it was literally running until the leader showed up in retro running gear and hoofed it off. Lucky for us he was an out of shape artist and had to stop a lot. The photo above showing us all running can be found in the review.
The city really was breathtaking.
The winding streets were everywhere and there was no modern section in the whole city.
Edinburgh is full of green spaces and parks.
I like the slightly blurred picture of the great couple we stayed with (actually all their shots were blurred. oops). We met Trevor in Malawi at a friend's house one evening and called him and his wife up from Morocco. Without fully remembering who we were or where we had met we were welcomed into their warm household. Trevor and Franny are amazing and laid-back hosts, fellow travellers and life-time adventurers, and genuinely wonderful people. (Oh, and did I mention great cooks?)
The castle sits up on the hill and overlooks the entire city.
Tracey Emin was having her first UK retrospective at the National Gallery of Scotland and I couldn't resist running over to see it on the morning we were catching a train to leave. It was a good show. I was most drawn to her more recent quilts and 2007 paintings.
Then we were back on the train returning to England. Moo.

2 comments:

Friar Tuck said...

I am so jealous. Love you.

Anonymous said...

Next year I think you should do the festival!