Edinburgh in August: Fringe, farmers' markets and foodie guide

Par Gabriel Goldberg 23 August 2026 18 min read

Some cities you visit; others belong to you a little. Edinburgh is firmly in the second category. I studied here from 2001 to 2003 , back when the city was only just shedding its reputation as an austere, granite, rain-soaked capital — Auld Reekie , "old smoky", from the days when coal blackened its façades. I am Belgian, I arrived with an impossible accent and an unsuitable wardrobe, and I left with an attachment that never faded. Today I serve as the University of Edinburgh's alumni representative in Belgium , keeping regular professional ties with the institution and several of its professors. In other words: I never quite come back as a tourist. And yet in August everybody becomes a tourist in Edinburgh. It is the month when the city doubles in size, when every courtyard becomes a venue, and when at midnight you pass an actress in eighteenth-century costume checking her phone between two performances. It is also — and this is the real surprise for anyone who knew the city twenty years ago — one of the best food destinations in the United Kingdom . Night scene on Edinburgh's Royal Mile during the Fringe: an actress in a cream period dress with white clown make-up and red cheeks holds a yellow 'No Parking' flyer beside a sticker-covered bollard, a spectator in a black jacket facing her, the lit crown spire of St Giles' Cathedral against the deep blue sky. The Fringe: the world's biggest arts festival, and its actors in the street The Edinburgh Festival Fringe was born in…