The Best Kept Secrets Of Edinburgh

Run by Picturehouses Cinemas, the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh is well worth a visit, even if you can’t tell your Lars von Trier from your Thomas Vinterberg. This picture house has been operating under one name or another for nearly a century and still features an old-timey white marquee above the main entrance telling you what’s on. The cinema screens selected new releases alongside more substantial arthouse fare, one-off revival screenings, curated director seasons and marathon movie sessions, such as the All Night Horror Madness events, all within the beautifully preserved art-deco Screen 1. Cinephiles can take their debates into the equally renowned Cameo Bar afterwards, which sells an astounding range of Scottish craft beers and American bottles like Anchor Steam Brewing Co.

After fifty years of cutting-edge theatre, breaking in award-winning performers and perpetually championing new writing for the stage, there’s no sign yet that Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre is looking to slow down. The enterprise actually began life in the 1960s as a theatre club in a deserted brothel in Edinburgh’s Lawnmarket, before moving to its current purpose-built two theatre space in the shadow of the Castle on the city’s West End. Throughout the year, one may find an array of specialist mini-festivals and seasons, such as the annual Fringe roster, Autumn Dance Festival, Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival, the Imaginate strand for younger theatregoers, and the Play, Pie and a Pint season. The Traverse has also attracted a reputation as Scotland’s new writing theatre, regularly commissioning, workshopping and developing new plays from first-time writers. Beyond the theatrical pedigree, the Traverse is a quaint dining establishment in its own right with its small, ground-floor coffee shop an ideal takeout spot for rushed office workers. Coffee is provided by award-winning Edinburgh roastersArtisan Roast.

Newly re-opened to the public, the Surgeon’s Hall Museum is a unique activity for an afternoon among the litany of museums in Edinburgh. Originally developed as a teaching museum for students of medicine, the museum sprung from the foundation of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1505 and expanded with subsequent additions of the remarkable collections of the anatomists Sir Charles Bell and John Barclay in the 1800s. The museum was opened to the public in 1832, making it one of Scotland’s oldest museums and its Regency-era Greek pillar facade remains one of the architectural highlights of the city. The SHM contains an eye-opening number of bone and tissue specimens, artifacts and artworks, and in the Wohl Pathology Wing, one of the largest historic collections of surgical pathology in the world. The Museum also houses hands-on exhibitions such as interactive computer simulations, audience participation devices, filmic and user-friendly textual explanation, encouraging visitors to think about their own health and well-being.