Edinburgh tattoo and fringe: Free comedy: laugh or your money back

We finally made it to Scotland for the Edinburgh festival last weekend, with tickets to the Tattoo and nothing else locked into the agenda.

We opted this trip to take the train both ways from Kings Cross, since the time (4 and a half hours) is roughly what it takes to get to the airport, check in, wait, fly, then get into town at the other end. A great way to travel, although our 2pm Friday train was jam packed with people taking up every possible aisle space. Luckily we had booked seats in advance, but all the people made for a pretty warm, squishy trip. We were lucky with our B&B too, Kirklea Guest House, which was charging more normal (affordable) rates than many other options in town, with even youth hostels asking for £100 a night when we looked to book 8 months ago.

First up, the Tattoo. Lucky for us the forecast rain didn't arrive, so we settled in for two hours of piping, drumming, dancing and the Scots not singing God Save the Queen. Highlights were the King of Norway's Guards Band and Drill Team (all youngsters doing their national service), The Top Secret Drum Corps from Switzerland (drumming so fast you couldn't see their hands move), and the Aussies, who did a pretty humorous set including a spot of Kyle and a Waltzing Mathilda sing-along. There was an extensive set at the end with all the bands re-creating Queen Elizabeth's coronation which we didn't feel the Scots were loving, and it's true, they all stood for the anthem but didn't sing. Not surprising, given one of the later verses of an older version of the the anthem includes the lines "Rebellious Scots to crush, God save the King." The Castle was very cleverly lit up in various ways throughout the Tattoo - some of the best pics here.

The US band playing a superhero mash up

The Castle lit with Union Jacks after the slightly weird and very long tribute to the Queen

The locals: a bit happier at their own flag

On Saturday we grabbed a Fringe guide (the size of a phone book) and planned the day as follows:
Improv: Aaand here's another thing - at a very small room in a pub, got jam packed and very hot and lots of people missed out getting in. Very clever and funny (donation)

Play: Executive Stress/Corporate Retreat - a hilarious play with plenty of audience participation by a group of young Aussies, Applespeil. We loved this, our competitive sides came out during the audience participation. Lou ended up the winner of the crowd in the end. Here she is proudly in her t-shirt, which we like to refer to as her 'Team Building Exercise '99' t-shirt, a la Flight of the Conchords. (£7 well spent)
Combination stand up: Lolympics - a flavour of a few of the acts at the festival (donation)
Stand up: Yianni, Numb and Number - an Aussie with number-based humour (donation)
Stand up: Kiwi Ben Crellin - funny, and good to support a kiwi, but a couple of the audience got pretty offended at his padeophile/murderer set which ruined the buzz a bit (donation)
Bingo: Bogan Bingo - does what it says on the tin. Two Aussies, in mullets, rocking to 80s tunes, while we all played a good old fashioned game of bingo. Pleased to find these guys play every Thursday close to us, so we might go laugh with them again some time soon (donation)

Our train on Sunday was departing mid-afternoon, so we had time for just two more shows:
Sketch: The Tourists - a small group of Manchurians with a set of bizarre, very funny skits (donation)
Variety: Free Footlights - another super popular show featuring some of the best young talent. Stand outs were I am I am, a musical duo with an amusing song about the London underground; Johnny Lenox as an 'author' reading some of his very clever and funny stories; and Phil Wang, a regular old fashioned stand up comic (donation)

A fantastic, albeit exhausting and full on, weekend. Will happily pop back again for another weekend during the festival.

Greece: It’s all Greek to me

In 2012 we von Yarralls had our first proper summer holiday for a couple of years, as 2010 was spent partying at the football world cup in South Africa, and 2011 exploring Canada. So we were overdue for some down time in the sun - and a bit of a change from the planning involved in independent travelling. London’s rubbish weather (grey and wet for months on end) wasn’t helping matters, so when the alarm went off at 4am for our taxi to the airport, there were no complaints – the idea of guaranteed sunshine was enough to see us bounding out of bed!

Dean - not happy at the new closing hours

We first flew to Athens, as we wanted to see the Acropolis before heading to the islands. The metro to the city from the airport took about 30 minutes, and we came out to scorching sunshine and a pretty empty street – seems most Athenians are smart and stay indoors in 35 degree heat. Not us though, we checked in to our very clean and cheap hotel Athens Center Square Hotel, then ambled our way up the hill to the Acropolis, taking in a couple of markets and the atmosphere as we went. We got there at about 3.15pm to find a hand-written note saying the Acropolis now closes at 3pm on Sundays (not the 8pm on the website). We, and many other visitors, were extremely disappointed at this, and after speaking to a taxi driver, found this is a by-product of Greece’s financial crisis, with the government not able to stump up with wages for staff to keep the Acropolis open. We were super annoyed, but took ourselves off to the airconditioned, very modern (and cheap) Acropolis museum instead. Although informative and good, it wasn’t a replacement for the real thing (and let’s be honest, we’ve been to the British Museum and seen it all already, thanks Elgin). We were somewhat amused at the video which said something along the lines of ‘Elgin took advantage of the times and plundered the Acropolis’.

The following morning we were off to the ferry terminal to head to Mykonos. Again, the metro was reliable and fast, and then we settled in for the 3 hour journey. The ferry port is huge, so it’s worth getting there early to find the relevant ticket booth, we wouldn’t have wanted to be running around at the last minute.

Mykonos was beautiful, hot, relaxing, delicious, fun, and many more adjectives. We stayed in a bungalow (big room with a private balcony) at Rhenia, by the new port. This location, a 5 minute, €1.60 bus ride to the main centre rather than inside the town, meant we weren’t too tempted to explore each day and instead did what we’d planned to do – sleep, sun, read, swim, and head out for delicious meals in town most nights. Meal highlights include Jimmy’s gyros for the best gyros (kebabs) all holiday, Niko’s Taverna for fresh seafood, and Matthew’s Taverna at the bottom of our hotel’s road (for lazybones who can’t be bothered going further). We went exploring one day, hiring a quad bike and seeing Ano Mara, Elia beach, Super Paradise beach, Paradise beach and Ornos. This was a great adventure, we spent most of our day at Super Paradise, hiring loungers and an umbrella and having food and drinks brought to us. Very luxurious. And if you're into a party this is the right place to come as this video shows!

After five nights in Mykonos we waved goodbye and boarded a ferry to Santorini, a 3 hour journey away. Here we were staying at Sofia Hotel in Firostefani, a ten minute easy walk from the main town of Fira. Santorini is beautiful, perched on top of a steep cliff, with all the white buildings looking like snow (one of us thought for a moment it was snow as we pulled into the harbour, and it wasn’t the ‘von’ part of the team.) We didn’t find Santorini quite as relaxing as Mykonos, our hotel was more central and the pool smaller, but we still lazed around doing pretty much nothing each day, starting the morning with fresh fruit and greek yoghurt, and ending it with an al fresco meal around 10pm each night.

Not snow, but snow white buildings perched on the top of the cliff

 The highlight of Santorini was the day we walked 10kms to Oia, a town famous for its beautiful sunsets. The hilly walk took about 2 1/2 hours in the hot sun, but meant we got some excellent views of the island on the way (top tip - wear normal shoes, jandals wouldn't cut it). After the sun went down we visited Santorini Mou, an excellent restaurant recommended to us by family, where the owner and his friends sing all night long. Lots of wine, ouzo and food that night especially.

Both islands seemed pretty busy, but we did get the impression they were quieter than normal, and heard in Santorini during the peak season they usually have 11 cruise ships in the harbour, where we saw 3 or 4 most days. This possibly made for a more relaxing trip for us, as although both towns had crowded, narrow streets, we didn’t feel quite as squashed as we would have during a usual visitor year.

We would happily pop back to Greece for a laid-back holiday in future, definitely the most relaxing trip we’ve done so far.

Next up – the von Yarralls don their kilts for the Edinburgh tattoo, can’t wait!