Each year in July, Edinburgh gets transformed ready for the Edinburgh Festival - which gets held for the whole of August. The festival covers all kinds of things; performing arts, street performers, theatre, comedy, circus acts, etc - including a lot of downright crazy stuff !
And what is really cool is that temporary venues and bars are constructed all around the city to host the events - like the one above which is in the courtyard of one of the buildings at the University of Edinburgh.
Above is another venue set up in a church. The event is the third biggest held in the world, and is only eclipsed in size by the Olympics and the World Cup ! That sounds crazy, but there are hundreds of shows every day for a whole month.
In the picture above, its not easy to make out but you can just see the edge of a stadium (top right) that is constructed in front of the castle to host the Edinburgh Military Tattoo each year. It holds 3000+ people maybe.
And above is the royal mile - one of the main tourist destinations in Edinburgh, which at this time of year hosts lots of street performers. As can be seen - it really does attract the crowds.
The place above was my fav venue this year where they opened a pop-up pub and theatre in this beautiful school dating back to the early 19th century - it was amazing to see the inside of this stunning building (see post here).
Above is the park in George Square - none of what you see is there normally except the trees - they even lay down astro turf over the whole park to protect the grass.
And above is an inflatable theatre in the same park. Its called the udder belly - hence the upside down cow !
And above is the circus zone which gets set up in the meadows - another large park in the city.
And heres one of the funky pop-up pubs - its quite large, and also has a pub on the floor above which is quite cool as you are sitting in the trees up there.
The building above is called the Teviot - and its one of the Edinburgh University buildings - again transformed for the festival.
These pop-up venues are numerous and spread right across the city - it really is cool, and brings such a vibe.
As can be seen they can really get busy.
Comedy is my thing during the festival, and I will go to a few stand-up comedy shows. I also like some of the street performers.
And now that its September, this is all being taken away again. August really is a fantastic month in the city, and so worth visiting. Its quite the experience !