This is the first of a handful of blog posts detailing our travels in Europe last summer. Each will focus on a particular destination and include a quick written summary, then a 3-5 minute video summary - melding together some of our photos and videos - and ending with basically a captioned photo/video dump of our experience there. Dig in as much as you’d like.

Our final blog post of 2025 captured our 2-day stay in Aberdeen, Scotland, and our drive south by way of the infamous town of St. Andrews and its eponymous golf course. See that post here. Now on to Edinburgh.

Assuming lodging would book up well in advance due to the Fringe Festival I booked our AirBnB two days after the close of the 2024 Fringe, so back in early September 2025..  And whoa, did we ever score. Top floor, four stories high, overlooking the Grassmarket and looking up at the cliffs of Castle Rock and the majestically imposing Edinburgh Castle, founded there in the 11th century. Off to its right of the castel sits the Esplanade venue for the renowned Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.  We purchased tickets to attend the Wednesday night performance, but advantageously participated remotely on Monday night, as we can watch the fireworks and hear the Massed Pipes and Drums through the open windows in our living room.

During the Fringe, the streets are thick with tourists and restaurants most often impossible to enter without a reservation. We had a few on our wish list that never panned out, but thoroughly enjoyed Amber Restaurant at the Scotch Whisky Experience where we met a fabulous couple, Stewart Cameron and wife Jane from Dunblane in Stirling, an hour west along the Firth of Forth. They filled us in on some local oughtados that we acted upon later.  As for the eats: lamb stovies (a traditional Scottish dish of slow braised lamb, onion and potatoes); a potato, fennel & crème fraiche salad; and we closed with five Scottish tapas: a haggis bon bon with sweet chilli jam, smoked Steelhead trout roulade, Ayrshire ham hock terrine with celeriac & apple slaw, Pittormie farm beetroot and Bonnet goats cheese roulade, and whisky marmalade prawns. And though I can’t remember the specifics, most dishes were paired with an apropos Scotch whisky.  Yeah, lights out fantastic.

August is the must do month in Edinburgh for the Fringe, but even more so for the Edinburgh Royal Military Tattoo. That’s what they call the spectacular show in the seasonally-erected arena with the Edinburgh Castle as its backdrop.  The performance included more than 800 performers, including the Massed Pipes and Drums, the Orchestra of the Naval Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, and Switzerland’s Top Secret Drum Corps.  Not to mention dazzling projected images across the facade of the castle and 100 synchronized drones spelling out the Tattoo’s 75th anniversary.

We walked for miles around town and into the surrounding Holyrood Park with its ancient ruins and the scenic perch called Arthur’s Seat. From there we could see the port area called Leith, and chose the following day to explore the docks there and a surprising wealth of shops and eateries. We visited the newish 9-story Port of Leith Distillery, the only “vertical” distillery in the United Kingdom, employing a gravity-led process moving ingredients and liquids downward through the stages of production, with grain milling and mashing at the top level, fermentation occurring in the middle, and then distillation near the bottom.  They had to do this because of their tiny urban plot footprint, yet the vertical distilling has unexpectedly resulted in higher fermentation temperatures and their spirits' unique fruit flavors.

(Just to rub it in: the next day’s flavors at Mary’s Milk Bar: black licorice & whiskey, oat and raspberry, and peanut with chile & coconut. Total YUM!!)

We dined twice at Eve Restaurant, an Italian Trattoria at the Virgin Hotel in the heart of the Cowgate area, first for lunch and a Fringe musical act, and then again for our final evening’s dinner.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any photos, but our culinary feast that night included homemade Focaccia with olive oil and rosemary, Bresaola with cured beef, goat cheese dressing, rocket salad, and baby onions, a mixed leaf salad with cherry tomatoes, capers, shallots, quail eggs, carrots, and smashed avocado, and our personal favorite, a simple vegetarian Peperoni Ripieni: a roasted pepper stuffed with fregola semolina pasta and aubergine with Dolcelatte dressing and walnuts. Divine! For dessert we double-downed with a cannoli packed with sweet ricotta, Amarena cherries, and chocolate, and then a Torta Della Nonna: a baked custard lemon cream tart with pine nuts.  All completely satisfying.

Should we make it to Edinburgh again - we can’t imagine only seeing that Tattoo once in our lives - we’ll want to dine at Eve’s sister restaurant upstairs at the Virgin, called Common Club. We had a quick glance as we were leaving and it looked fantastic. In fact, there are a ton of fantastic-looking restaurants and bars along Victoria Street! 

The next morning we caught a taxi cab and met driver David, retired from the Royal military after 35 years of service, 21 of those in the U.S. training American military. He advised us he’s been in every war venue in the world many times, and was shot by a rocket in Kandahar, resulting in a lost kidney and other internal damage, which forced his retirement.  His traditional black Hackney Carriage vehicle picked us up in front of Mary’s Milk Bar, then whipped around in an astonishing 25-foot turning circle and headed for the airport.  Our Toyota RAV4 takes 36.1 feet to do that. The Fiat Topolino in the photo takes 23.6 feet. The Renault Twizy 22.3 feet. It all has to do with the Hackney cab’s specialized front-end steering geometry, an uncluttered axle design, and heavily modified wheel housings. So, now you know.

We loved our not-quite-a-week in Edinburgh.  The craziness of the Fringe. The majesty of the Tattoo.  We hope to get back, maybe for both.  If so, we’ll hope to book that same AirBnB. One of our favorites of all our travels.

Check out the video below for a 4.5-minute summary of our Edinburgh adventure, and below that you’ll find 70 or so captioned photos with some specifics.