Sarah Tucker, our travel columnist, describes her mind-blowing visit to Scotland's capital in August, the season for poetry
I didn't know what to expect in Edinburgh.
Sarah Tucker outside The Elephant House, the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter
I don't like being told that I must like a place before I go. My expectations for a holiday are already high, so raising them any higher means they become astronomical - and I'm inevitably disappointed. Consequently, I've been let down by both Ireland and Ibiza - not because they're not wonderful, but because they weren't quite as wonderful as I'd been led to imagine.
Everyone who heard I was going to Edinburgh told me the festivals would be amazing. Yes, not just the Fringe Festival - in August the city also hosts the Book Festival, the Art Festival, and the International Festival. I had visited Edinburgh before, but only quickly passed through on the way to St Andrews, and never during the festival season.
Walking the streets of Edinburgh (and boy, did I walk for those four days), I realised J.K. Rowling filched from every stone and cranny, every narrow archway and corner, every shadow and smell, every alley way and signpost. The world of Harry Potter owes a lot to Edinburgh, but I think its creator has paid back in bucketloads.
While I was there I ate very little, and slept less. I don't eat much anyway, but for those four days I seemed to live off almonds and water, with the occasional bag of jelly sweets when I felt light-headed. I had one lunch at Civerinos that was very good - on Saturdays they feed the chefs from nearby restaurants, and swap stories about how little sleep they've had in August.
I don't think anyone in Edinburgh sleeps during August. There's far too much going on, and besides, they have September for that. When I did sleep, I did so at the Old Town Chambers, self-catering apartments with gorgeous views of Edinburgh - and the beautiful Glasshouse Hotel on the other side of the nearby railway station, near the Ingleby Gallery where I saw some of Charles Avery's work.
The city is multi-layered, built up one street on top of one another, like a three-dimensional cobweb, and the festivals mirrored the streets in a mish-mash web of incredible creative chaos.
The high culture of the International Festival, which attracted big names like Juliette Binoche (beautiful but a bit snotty, a pity) and the baroque of Iestyn Davies (think the soundtrack from The Draftsman Contract or Dangerous Liaisons), intertwined with the appropriately bookish Book Festival, tented and neat-lawned in a square, alongside the Arts Festival that spit-spotted galleries and sculptures anywhere it could find space, and the famous Fringe Festival occupying every other nook and cranny.
Warehouses, conference centres, student dorms, pubs, restaurants, ladies toilets, rooftops, cellars, graveyards, churches - anywhere there was space was taken up by creativity.
The whole city buzzed with the inspired and inspirational, and you saw a lot of it while walking from one venue to the next. Walking is absolutely the quickest way to travel through those winding streets, dodging fellow tourists and 'Edinburgh Crusties' who are here for more cerebral stuff.
I didn't know where to start with the highlights (below). There are thousands of productions going on - do not go home thinking you have missed the best. If you do you will be miserable all the time.
Be zen, stay in the now, and just enjoy what you see. I went to about fifteen productions in three days. That's enough - you need some time to walk, think, admire, be. I was told I must see Filthy Talk in Troubled Times and Tea Set and Brute, but didn't. One day I'm sure I will, but I didn't stop walking or clapping or crying or laughing.
Feel free to take your children, but they will need to be able to walk, and can't be allowed to whinge. You walk everywhere in Edinburgh, and if they whinge, don't bring them. Tell them they are going to the real Harry Potter Land, and complaining means they'll be turned into snakes or something.
I've said it twice already, but a third time can't hurt - you will walk everywhere. Make sure you're reasonably fit. I'd actually recommend making the trip alone and finding new friends - or just talking to people. If you go with someone you're liable to debate over what you're going to see, but you want to be spontaneous. Take a risk, as Kate Tempest would shout. I know it's not English, but do it.
Oh, and make sure to go up by train and head back by sleeper. It's part of the experience. Although one of my friends found themselves in the same carriage as Janet Street Porter, so it wasn't quite the experience they had hoped for.
The next Edinburgh Fringe Festival runs from August 5-29 2016
Festival Report: The Highlights
The Encounter was a phenomenal journey, storytelling on a whole new level, a one-man show by Simon McBurney that was as multi-layered as the city itself. Desperately funny and funnily desperate, McBurney made himself vulnerable, and the audience reciprocated.
A lot of high art is too clever to really capture you - rather than loosing yourself, you're thinking "this is very clever". The Encounter doesn't have that problem. There's no ego in this performance. It's visceral and perfect, and I've never experienced anything like it. I didn't want it to end, though I was utterly exhausted emotionally by the conclusion.
Kate Tempest was another performance that blew me away. For an hour, she recited one poem after another with blistering intensity, scorching at the beige-ness of life, how we are all terribly fearful and terribly angry and yet do nothing about it. We are bashed into apathy and mediocrity, but she exposed it in funny, filthy, powerfully poignant, lyrics. She made the audience cry and laugh within a few minutes of each other, and that's amazing.
Phil Jupitus, famous for his time on Mock the Week, is a funny comedian, but also a very good poet. He made up poems using the titles of his fellow Fringe productions, and it wasn't just a gimmick; they're good as well. He hates David Cameron and Boris Johnson with a vengeance, but I got the feeling that everyone in Scotland felt the same.
The performances go onto the early hours. At midnight I saw Pole, a production about pole dancing. Three girls performing (around poles) about the good, bad and very very ugly of the industry. One was a yoga teacher. Well, some of the moves are very much like yoga postures, though I doubt Iyengar was thinking that at the time.
The David Bailey exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery was packed with photos, but the best by far were Ralph Fiennes looking utterly edible in 1995, Jeanne Moreau (with smoking cigarette) in 1966, Marianne Faithful, superb in 1964, and Mick Jagger in 1976 looking utterly trashed. You can see Mandela in 1997 - what's he thinking?
There was Jack Nicholson laughing, Francis Bacon, looking as distorted and disturbed as the images he painted, Jacqueline Henri Lartigue like a map of a life on his face, with incredible lighting. U2's Bono stood out from 1985, his ego shouting out of the photo. It was all about him, will always be about him, has always been about him. Bailey captured the soul even when there isn't much of a one.
I watched Trygve Wakneshaw and his production of Kraken. Very clever; I saw his penis but then so did everyone in the audience. Twice.
Performances without penises included Funny Bones Trash, an excellent, funny and poignant (that combination again) show for the children and their parents.
UKIP the Musical was Nigel Farage meets South Park, clever and funny. Not poignant - but funny.
Antigone, at the King's Theatre, was good. It had a very strong cast, with Juliette Binoche and Finbar Lynch, as well as Obi Abili and Kirsty Bushell. I thought there would be no laughs in this one, but there were. I'm not a regular theatregoer but I do admire beautiful acting.
Make sure to see the Edinburgh Tattoo - it is the icing on the cake of this wonderful city. The ceremony is enchanting, and the castle is beautiful. Edinburgh is a city of poets. For a month they get a stage to tell the world what they have to say - and for four days I sat in the audience, drinking it in. It was a privilege.
