The festival season may be over, and what a season it was! With over 400 guests staying with the Edinburgh Address, we can say it has been a wonderful season for us as well!
Th
e city was filled with street arts of all kind – some of our personal favourites were the pop up bands and random body contortionists that filled the Royal Mile! Our guests staying at The Penthouse @ The Royal Mile must’ve had a great view. There was at least one particularly talented guitarist, who seemed to have made the entrance gates to the Penthouse apartment his hang out spot, as he was there every time I went to the apartment – and boy, was he good!
But not to fear! Edinburgh is a city that never sleeps, and the coming months are bound to provide our local dwellers and faraway guests with more than plenty to do! To start off, in September, there are some rare treats in store! For example, just a week away is the Portobello Open Door day – on the 8th September, Portobello is hosting a Village Show in Rosefield Park with plenty of competitions, games, displays music and refreshments. And that nicely coincides with some of our special offers - such as the lovely The Gatekeepers Cottage @ Blacket Estate, Classic Marchmont Charm @ The Meadows or Apartment Castle Terrace @ 9A – all offering 10% off during September!
Also, in September there is the Moon Festival at the Edinburgh Zoo, where to celebrate the Chinese Moon Festival, the Zoo will hold a special evening event where you can join them by moon light, and get a rather different experience in the Zoo itself! And as a special treat for those in search for rarities; Edinburgh Antiques and Collectors Fair is on 14th and 15th September, hosting to 300 exhibitors offering ceramics, glass, jewellery, paintings, furniture, silver, treen, vintage & retro clothing and much more
And for October Edinburgh hosts yet another festival, this time wholly dedicated to the tradition of storytelling that is deep within the Celtic culture. As the description already says; “Be 
transported by Travellers’ Tales that span worlds of geography, fiction and landscapes of the heart. The 2013 edition of the world’s leading storytelling festival traverses time and space celebrating the myths and legends carried through wanderlust.” The Scottish International Storytelling Festival is bound to be filled with surprises!
To finish off October then is the time of Samhuinn, the end of summer (from "Sain" meaning summer and "fuin" meaning "ending). Much of the nation’s vast history involves the supernatural, with women accused of witchery being burned, with Shakespeare’s’ imagination of the witches in Macbeth. Feast of spirits of the dead, when they would return to earth engaging in wicked practices, scary haunting and other general mayhem, the villagers were known to lit bonfires as much to keep the sprites away as to ensure the return of the sun in the following spring. Guising was the norm, and witches with blackened faces, with broomsticks and cloaks, would run around the streets, knocking on doors to tell stories or jokes before receiving nuts, apples and sweets. It was even customary to leave an empty seat and plate of dinner at the dinner table for those departed, as the hour before midnight was believed to be the hour of return. Far from the modern day chimaera of guises and candy begging with no shtick performed. I prefer the olden ways.
This year Edinburgh once again celebrates the Samhuinn in style – the Beltane Fire Society’s Samhuinn Fire Festival topping the cake. Beltane – “bright fire” – has been historically celebrated in various forms across Ireland, Scotland and Man as the star of summer celebration, and in Edinburgh on August 31, the Beltane Fire Society hosts the amazing Fire Festival, starting at 9pm with procession from the Castle Hill, where everyone can join, in costumes or not, with a mere donation.
The excitement of discovery never ends in Edinburgh!