At the end of the “Festive Season” in Edinburgh there is this gorgeous fireworks show in Princes Street Gardens. An orchestra plays gorgeous classical music and over 100,000 fireworks are shot off in a display that is coordinated to the music. We made our way to Inverleith Park with a group of our friends to take part in the tradition. The park was packed with over 6000 people sitting on picnic blankets, sipping hot chocolate, and tuning their radios to the broadcast of the concert.
With the castle as the backdrop the sky was lit up with all sorts of beautiful fireworks – it is such a great way to mark the end of Festival. At this point most of the tourists have left and the show really is for the locals. I wasn’t able to get great pictures as fireworks are really hard to capture, but hopefully this will give you an idea:

These are all a little blurry as I was using my knees as a tripod - not exactly the most stable surface.
The grand finale was Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus! Ashli and I got a big kick out of the fact that such a sacred piece of music would be the final note to a festival that is humanistic to the extreme. In a lot of ways it was a beautiful irony and I must say that I think that fireworks are the perfect accompaniment to the exuberant praise expressed in the chorus. As Anton said, “I think that this is how it is going to be when we first enter heaven.” That’s sounds pretty perfect to me – gorgeous, exuberant music and fireworks.