The Edinburgh Fringe - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to head up to Edinburgh for the end of the Fringe. It was a spur of the moment thing, a friend and I decided that after being home for two months, we needed some new surroundings and so we went ahead and booked a little trip. There's nothing better than a last-minute break, and this made it really exciting, but it also meant that because we didn't have that much time to plan ahead, a lot of the places to stay were either extortionately expensive or completely booked up. We ended up taking a bit of a risk, but it paid off.

We stayed in a Snoozebox, described on its website as a 'temporary hotel' (if you're interested, take a look here) which moves around to cater for different events. There's photos on there too, so we had an idea of what to expect, but we weren't quite prepared for how much it would live up to the latter part of its name...

On arrival, we struggled to find it. Now I'm the first to admit that my map reading skills are shocking, but even I could tell we were in the right area, and seeing as it was described as a 'village', we didn't think we'd be able to miss it. But we did. Eventually we ended up asking in a nearby restaurant and were told that two other girls had been in looking for the same place, so that was promising. Luckily, the guy was really helpful and pointed us in the right direction - he told us it was located in an 'old derelict car park' just around the corner. It definitely didn't say that on TripAdvisor.

When we eventually arrived, the hotel had an interesting decor from the outside....it looked a bit like a prison. I quite liked this though - as a big Prison Break fan I was prepared to play the role of a female Michael Scofield if necessary (the difference being if we wanted to leave we could just walk out instead of going through the whole origami birds fiasco). The inside of our room was literally tiny. I was expecting small and box-like, but more of an IKEA flat-pack furniture box than a cereal box. I don't know how the photographer managed to make it look so deceivingly big, that was some impressive work.

The sizing was a bit of a shock at first, not because it was an issue but just because we weren't expecting it. On further inspection, it had everything we needed and more (how they managed to fit a flat-screen tv in there I do not know, good shout Snoozebox people) with a wet room the size of a wardrobe and ridiculously comfy beds. It was cosy, felt safe, and was in a great location for the station - by the end of the festival we'd grown stupidly attached to our new home and didn't want to leave. The one thing I will say is make sure you are totally comfortable with the person you're staying with because there is no room for modesty....the hole in the bathroom door acting as a handle makes sure of that. Also, because all the plumbing is portable (at least I'm guessing that's the reason) it can make some really dodgy noises. Like, scary, grinding noises every time you turn on the tap. But Michael Scofield wouldn't care about a few rickety pipes, would he? I'd definitely recommend booking into a Snoozebox if you ever get the chance, its little quirks are what made it such a brilliant place to stay.

After the accommodation I'll just say a quick word on where we ate. My friend and I like food a lot (tragically, the Great British Bake-Off is currently the highlight of our week), so it was important that we found somewhere nice. After reading about it on the internet before we left, we came across this amazing veggie cafe, Henderson's, on our way to one of the venues (website here). I think the fact we went back there twice in the space of two and a half days speaks for itself - they had a huge selection of amazing salads, hot meals and very importantly for me, soup and freshly-baked bread. I have a thing about soup. I became really lazy with cooking in the last year of uni and basically lived off it thanks to the 2 for £3 deal at Tesco, so I like to think that makes me a bit of an expert. It doesn't, it just means that I know my Moroccan chicken from my puy lentil and vine-ripened tomato (the first one has chicken in, the second one doesn't). Anyway, my point is that Henderson's soup, like everything else we tried, was really good, so you should definitely eat there if you get the chance. They also had a deli upstairs where you could get things to take-away so even if you don't have the time to sit, you can still grab a sandwich or salad.

Food and shelter is important, but the real reason we went to Edinburgh was to experience the festival, and that's what I'll talk about in part 2.