Princes Street Gardens

I have a confession to make, dear readers. Over the summer I made a most startling discovery: the main street running through New Town is not called Princess Street, as I have led you all to believe. Rather, it is actually called Princes Street. Named for King George III's sons, not daughters (did he even have daughters?). I apologize for leading you astray on this matter! (but, do say it out loud and I think you will see how it is easy to make this mistake!)

View of the Castle from Princes Street

Anyway, I came upon this realization when we were out walking one summer's evening, when I happened to see a street sign indicating that I had been mis-hearing this name for 9 months! Soon after discovering this, we discovered another interesting find: BBC Radio recording a weekly show from the middle of Princes Street Gardens. I'm not sure what show it was (nor which BBC Radio station), but that week's show featured a traditional Scottish band playing various country dance tunes. Although obviously not included in the broadcast, the event also featured Scottish country dancing. Loved it. There was a group of 8 who did several dances for the crowd which was really great.


But, the best part was when the whole audience joined in the dances. We must have come in towards the end, but were still able to witness several large country dance numbers, complete with nearly 100 dancers. So fun. Most of the dances require fairly large "sets" of 8-10 people all doing the (quite complicated) steps together. There was one dance, however, that was done in pairs and was relatively simple--so Joe and I joined in for that one. It was really fun and I loved thinking of the country dance parties that use to happen. I think those would have been the highlight of my week!



The broadcast also featured a few numbers by a most talented Scottish Pipe Band.