Edinburghcastle

Edinburgh castle and the Military Tattoo - August 2005

This is another day from the Edinburgh trip. We had tickets for
the Military Tattoo in the evening, so we spent the day going through
Edinburgh Castle.

This castle is very old, and definitely fits my image of what a castle
should look like. It's an imposing structure at the top of a bluff, with sheer cliffs down three sides (the fourth looks down the Royal Mile).
There's a good thousand years of history in the place, and the
audio tour takes you through most of it. You could easily spend
an entire day doing the tour and checking out the whole place.

The Military Tattoo is at its core an exhibition of military bands.
There is of course a massed band of pipers; this is Scotland
after all. At this year's there was also a Jamaican-style military band, from Trinidad and Tobago including kettle drums and limbo dancers... Also an interesting bit put on by some military guys depicting the theft of the crown jewels by terrorists.
This meant lots of blanks being fired from machine guns,
followed by a ten minute sweep of the area to pick up the shells
before a band member slipped!

There were also some dancers and bands commemorating the
battle of Trafalgar, since this year was the 200th anniversary.
It's definitely worth the price, but if you plan on going, be sure
to buy your tickets early. I bought them 6 months in advance,
but still couldn't get a weekend night.

Ex-church (now the
tourist info center)

Royal Mile near
the castle

Entrance to the castle

A battery of cannon

It's pretty crowded
even on a weekday

Now that's a door!

Panoramic view to

the north. See the Firth

of Forth in the background.

All of these buildings are
within the castle complex.

More views of the city

Lots of churches here

This fires every day at 1pm

Buildings on rocks

Just built up and around
the rocks of the mountain

Mons Meg - 6 ton siege gun
used from 1457 to 1681

War memorial

Front of war memorial

The Great Hall

Awesome ceiling

So, the Tattoo doesn't start until dark, but people start lining up
hours beforehand (despite all the tickets being reserved). I couldn't
believe how many people were crammed into the street outside of
the castle. It took a good 45 min of shuffling forward en masse before
we finally reached our seats. By the time it started, the stands
were completely full, and very tightly packed!

The Tattoo takes place in the castle esplanade (the courtyard between the castle and the Royal Mile), so you have the castle itself
as a nice background.

I tried to get some decent pictures, but (low light + hand-held 300mm telephoto lens + squashed by people from both sides) = blurry pictures. Still, hopefully you can get some sense of the event.

Check out the official website for some audio clips and official pictures.