Visiting Edinburgh

The first hours of 2010 look likely to be chilly ones with temperatures in Edinburgh dropping several degrees below zero.

There are a few customs surrounding drinking in pubs that visitors to Edinburgh - particularly those from North America - take a bit of time adjusting to. A "server" doesn't bring your drinks to the table, rather you have to go to the bar and order.

Castle baggers and historical buildings buffs mark your diaries: Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution, Michael Russell, has announced a weekend of free entry to 47 Historic Scotland sites throughout Scotland on Saturday 28th November and Sunday 29th November to mark St Andrew's Day.

The Night Afore (30 Dec, the night before Hogmanay) brings a display of light and fire on the Royal Mile and various special tours in popular visitor attractions. Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Light Night follows a model borrowed from Paris and St Petersburgh where familiar city venues are opened and illuminated at night to present specially commissioned events and artists.

For scale, no show in Edinburgh can rival the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Literally hundreds of performers, both from Scotland and bands and organisations from abroad, gather under the dramatic backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. The series of displays combines breathtaking shows of military precision, often a battle re-enactment, military bands, including the mass pipes and drums.

Edinburgh City Council has reported thousands of visitors on Doors Open Day 2009, held the past Saturday and Sunday.

In particular, the newly restored and reopened Nelson Monument and Burns Monument were busy throughout the day on Saturday (26 September), drawing crowds of some 2,000 visitors and residents between them.

75 buildings, many off-bounds to the general public during the year, throw open their doors for the annual Doors Open Day.

Inverleith Park and Calton Hill are being recommended by the council as the best public places to view the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert this year due to the closure of much of Princes Street for laying of the Edinburgh tram tracks.

All year round Edinburgh offers world class exhibitions from the National Galleries of Scotland to the private art boutique-style galleries, all the way down Dundas Street - the Cork Street of Edinburgh - and dotted around the urban villages of Stockbridge, Broughton and Leith.

The 2009 Fringe programme includes 2098 shows with 34,265 performances in 265 performing spaces.

The struggle to win the vote for women will be showcased in a new Museum of Edinburgh exhibition to commemorate the centenary of the 1909 suffragettes' procession in the city.

The skirl of bagpipes on the Royal Mile may be a familar sound, but for the first time in recent years a lone bagpiper is welcoming visitors to Edinburgh Castle as it opens each day.

The piper, in full Highland dress, will be playing daily throughout the Summer season as Edinburgh Castle's great wooden entrance gates draw open at 9.30am and visitors flow in across the drawbridge.

The next chance to buy tickets for the Festival Fireworks Concert - the explosive  finale to the Edinburgh International Festival - is Monday 27 July when an allocation of tickets goes on sale

The Cavalcade sees performers from all the Edinburgh Festivals roll through the city in an annual procession at the beginning of August. It usually takes place on the first Sunday of the month, but in 2009 is scheduled for Sunday 9 August.

In Scotland, the Kirk outlawed witchcraft as devil-worshipping heretics in 1563 and 1,500 people were executed. The last "witch"  to be executed was Janet Horne in 1727. Sentenced to death by burning, she was stripped, covered in tar and paraded through Dornoch in a barrel after being accused of having a pact with the devil.

Four special tours will give visitors the chance to walk Holyrood Park in the footsteps of the famous.

World famous Scottish comedian Billy Connolly is to perform four gigs at Edinburgh's Usher Hall this autumn following multi-million pound refurbishment of the venue.

Edinburgh's Grassmarket marks the recent redevelopment of the historic area with this monthly market type festival and market.

Edinburgh Treefest is a lively, free, family festival revolving around trees and wood with interative crafts, stalls, displays, games, North American exhibition, axe throwing, horse logging, skate

A series of measures designed to minimise the impact of the extensive tram works on Princes Street on this year's Edinburgh Festival has been announced by the Edinburgh Tram Project