Botanic Lights Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. I’ve always been a big fan of the Royal Botanic Gardens here in Edinburgh, or RBGE as it’s normally abbreviated and how I will call it. The RBGE always has something going on, whether it be an exhibition at Inverleith House on top of the hill or some conceptual art installation in the garden. Or there couple be a strange plant blooming or the Survival of the Fittest Trail which my wife illustrated and is still showing.

So one of the events they’ve hosted every year for at least the last couple of years is something called Botanic Lights which they describe as a “magical trail of light through the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh” and which I really have to agree with.

At various points along a set trail through the RBGE there are numerous light installations, some of which you can interact with (like the big button under the green trees (below) which you press and it lights the trees up).

There was a section with tablets where you can change the colours of the lights and at a couple points there were light and water or steam shows. One such installation was on the Chinese hillside which I tried to record a video of but it was way too dark even for my camera to record.

Another light and water installation was in one of the ponds which I watched twice with my daughter (more on that below) which was cool and finally there was a big 5 minute light show/video projected onto the front of Inverleith House, which I’ve linked to a video I uploaded onto Youtube at the bottom of this article.

I mentioned taking my daughter and it really is a good thing for kids to check out. I wouldn’t take a child younger than mine (4.5 at the time of this show) but there were plenty of things for her to interact with and see and the Marshmallow Lady was there which gave Millie a (very welcome for us because we wouldn’t need to carry her) sugar boost.

We ordered some marshmallows on a stick and two s’mores. Neither Liv or I could eat them because the marshmallows themselves were sweet, which was fine, but the biscuits were coated in sugar as well so they were too sweet but Millie loved hers.

In total the show is supposed to take 1.5 hours and we arrived at 7pm but we spent 2.5, nearly 3, hours there but to be fair I stopped to take quite a lot of photos and a couple videos on a tripod. My mother also came up from Yorkshire to stay with us for a couple days and check out the light show although she struggled with settings on her camera.

The last thing we saw at Botanic Lights and the last thing we could frankly muster up the energy to see (I had been on my feet all day working) was the previously mentioned light projection show on Inverleith House, very cool and right at the bottom of this article is a video for this.

So below is a collection of photos, one video at the time of posting this article and I’ll upload another on Monday when I’m back at college and using their awesome internet. Hope you like some of my photos from Botanic Lights.