Jupiter Artland. My family and I are always looking for days out in the Edinburgh area. Fortunately we have lots of things to do including the numerous festivals which I’ve written about before. In fact in just a few days the Fringe Festival is celebrating it’s 70th birthday so I’m expecting (well, more like hoping), this year’s festival will be an exceptional one. Certainly now I live in central Edinburgh I’ll be checking it out quite a lot.

Anyway, our daughter Amelia loves going anywhere and Liv and I particularly like checking out gardens. Earlier this year we visited the Garden of Cosmic Speculation over in Dumfries which was pretty but it took two hours to get there, two hours to get in, was expensive and way overcrowded. In fairness it’s only open one day a year but I don’t think we’d go back.

Jupiter Artland is a similarly beautiful, cheaper and really local, just 20 minutes from home. Jupiter Artland recently hosted a “kids go free” day and on the day we had really fabulous weather so we checked it out. Driving in you go through the hills you can see in the top panorama then you walk past the orange house (residents house) and to the entrance. We paid for tickets for Liv and myself (remember, Amelia was free) and then we spent a couple hours walking around.

Similarly to the Garden of Cosmic speculation, the grounds are full of conceptual artworks and we spent a good couples hours walking around. The hills mentioned above and in the first picture were particularly lovely. We spent quite a long time there eating a picnic Liv prepared and Millie had a big run around the hills and dipped her feet in the water.

So have a look at the photos below and if you fancy a family day or few hours out and you’re local then the Jupiter Artland is definitely worth a visit. I must mention they also host lots of art exhibitions but check out their website for more information.

On the drive in there are loads of animals for people to feed. We parked just across from where most of the animals were so naturally my daughter had to feed them.

Jupiter Artland has a lot of conceptual artworks (if that’s what its called) like the above. Not my thing but still cool to photograph.

If there’s a tree or branch my daughter will try to climb it!