Mayor Dave Cull led a three-person city council delegation to Scotland earlier this month to mark the 40th anniversary of Dunedin's sister-city links with Edinburgh, a city they found in a feverishly festive state, as city councillor Neville Peat reports.
''Here it is,'' says our guide, who is wearing the gold chain of high office.
''The Dunedin Room.''
The Lord Provost (Mayor) of Edinburgh, the Rt Hon Donald Wilson, ushers us into an elegant meeting room about 15m long with a high ceiling and rimu wall panels.
''Lovely meeting space, isn't it?'' he says.
An enormous table is the first thing you notice, and, hanging at the end wall, in pride of place, is a painting of Dunedin half a world away.
The painting - even the room itself - is a surprise to Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull, council arts adviser Cara Paterson and me.
Here in the City of Edinburgh Council's centuries-old stone building is the counterpart of our Edinburgh Room in the Municipal Chambers back home.
And the painting?
It's a wide perspective of Dunedin in the late 1940s from just above Otago Boys' High School, taking in the central business district, university precinct, upper harbour and part of Otago Peninsula, with the Southern Endowment reclamation out to the right still a work in progress.
An oil on canvas, it carries the signature of the celebrated New Zealand artist Peter McIntyre, a son of Dunedin, and was presumably a commissioned work.
There is more detail than is usual for a McIntyre painting, with the iconic R. A. Lawson buildings (Otago Boys' High, Municipal Buildings, First and Knox churches) easily identifiable.
It was presented to Edinburgh in 1947 by Dunedin's Mayor Sir Donald Cameron, the year Dunedin's coat of arms, featuring Edinburgh Castle's ramparts and a kilted Highlander, was registered in anticipation of the centenary of Dunedin and the Otago settlement in 1948.
All in all, the Dunedin Room and its eponymous painting reinforce our reason for being here.
Our objectives included acknowledging Edinburgh's role in the settlement of Dunedin and the 40 years of sister-city friendship, and Mr Cull does this at a formal lunch on the first full day of our six-day visit.
Then, with the support of the Edinburgh Festivals staff, Creative Scotland and the British Council, we launch into a programme of prearranged meetings with an array of art, cultural and educational institutions and look out for opportunities for collaboration between the two cities.
Actually, there was an example about to be unveiled as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.
Coinciding with the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, a major international exhibition of contemporary art selected by five curators from Commonwealth countries, including New Zealand, was being hosted by the City Art Centre in Edinburgh.
Dunedin Public Art Gallery curator Aaron Kreisler was one of the curators for this exhibition and the New Zealand artists presenting work included Dunedin's Kushana Bush.
Besides the lunch discussion with the Lord Provost, our meetings the first day were with Creative Scotland, University of Edinburgh, and an events director associated with the swag of festivals that were about to double Edinburgh's population to more than 1 million over the next couple of weeks.
The university contacts included the head of English literature and the head of the university's international division, with whom we discussed the potential for student exchanges.
Next day we met the director of Edinburgh Napier University's Scottish Centre for the Book and senior staff in the creative writing field who were keen to pursue a dialogue with University of Otago counterparts regarding course development for postgraduate students.
Meetings on the literature theme came up virtually every day: Edinburgh International Book Festival (established 1983), Scottish Storytelling Centre (there is a storytelling festival every year), the dynamic Scottish Poetry Library, School of Celtic and Scottish Studies, and Edinburgh's designation as a Unesco International City of Literature (see above right).
We already knew Edinburgh was a world-leading hotspot for festivals, evidenced by the crush of overseas visitors on the footpaths who steadfastly keep to the right.
But what of the economic impact?
The city council's culture and sport convener, Cr Richard Lewis, told us the council contributed about 2.5 million ($NZ4.97 million) every year towards the running of the city's 12 festivals. For every 1 invested, he said, the city economy benefited by 33.
Altogether, the 12 major festivals attract audiences that total four million, and the Scottish economy benefits by about 260 million each year.
The creative sector is a money-spinner.
Just consider the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, one of the greatest shows on Earth, first staged at the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade in 1950. Its contribution to the Scottish economy is reckoned to be at least 100 million annually.
Run on a not-for-profit basis, the Tattoo has donated about 10 million to charities over the years.
In Dunedin, there is support for running an Edinburgh-like tattoo at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
Mr Cull and I spoke to the Edinburgh Tattoo's producer, Brigadier David Allfrey, about the chances of having elements of his show take part at our roofed stadium.
He knew of the stadium and said he would like to see it in October when he would be in New Zealand.
A highlight of this year's Tattoo programme was an elaborate combined performance by 50 highland dancers from New Zealand and a 50-strong kapa haka group.
They formed part of a 240-strong contingent from New Zealand at Edinburgh, the largest sent abroad by Creative New Zealand.
Presented in Edinburgh about the same time as the Tattoo is the world's largest arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe (20,000 performers at more than 250 venues).
An unintended consequence of the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival, the Fringe first appeared in 1947 (the same year as Mayor Cameron presented the McIntyre painting of Dunedin).
Edinburgh Fringe provides inspiration for Dunedin's own Fringe Festival, and the same goes for Dunedin's biennial International Science Festival, which draws talent from the older Edinburgh Science Festival (established 1988).
On the music front, there are interests working both in Dunedin and in Edinburgh to cultivate contact based on the celebrated ''Dunedin Sound'' as well as through Celtic music.
In July-August this year, Martin Phillipps of the 1980s Dunedin band The Chills, led the rejuvenated Chills on a tour of the United Kingdom, their last concert being in Scotland.
Collaboration between museums in Edinburgh and Dunedin is also likely.
Toitu staged the ''DUNedinburgh'' Exhibition this year, incorporating artefacts from the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The exhibition challenged Dunedin citizens to think about its Scottish heritage and Scottish brand and not let the latter wither.
The Edinburgh museum director, Dr Gordon Rintoul, said he would be happy to discuss exhibition collaborations with both Toitu and Otago Museum in the future.
As for the sister-city relationship, it is eight years since a mayoral delegation from Dunedin visited Edinburgh.
Mayor Peter Chin led the 2006 delegation.
As Mr Cull reminded our various hosts, we came with more than a ''civic handshake'' in mind.
In Scotland, a sister-city arrangement is known as a ''twinning'', although in the case of the Dunedin-Edinburgh link size and age are not comparable.
Edinburgh has four times Dunedin's population and its history traces back a thousand years.
Dubbed New Edinburgh before the Gaelic name was adopted (see above left), Dunedin is a chip off the old block of the Scottish capital city when it comes to the names of locations, suburbs and streets.
George and Princes Sts are the main streets of Edinburgh's New Town (new from the mid-18th century) and Moray Pl, Bath, Castle, Great King, St Andrew, Hanover, Frederick and Albany Sts are as prominent in the heart of Edinburgh as they are in Dunedin's CBD.
Edinburgh locations such as Musselburgh, Portobello, Leith, Corstorphine and Calton Hill carry immediately recognisable names.
At a reception for the New Zealand contingent in Edinburgh, Mr Cull and I were approached by a community leader from the Edinburgh suburb of Corstorphine (in Edinburgh pronounced ''Cor-STOR-phin''), to see if the two communities could collaborate on projects of mutual interest.
Heritage is everywhere you look in Edinburgh. Its Old Town, centred on the Royal Mile and still cobblestoned in places, wraps over a ridge that was within a walled city at one time.
In the medieval era when expansion was contemplated, there was no choice but to build upwards.
Its curved streetscapes and narrow stair-cased closes imbue the Old Town with a fairytale atmosphere.
In 1995, Edinburgh was designated a Unesco World Heritage Area for its old architecture.
August is the peak festival month.
The streets are alive with Fringe entertainment - courageous, comedic, cultural, confronting - and indoor venues abound with art and performance.
For a few days we took in some of this festival fever and thought of Dunedin's own arts, fringe and science festivals, and of the city's draft Ara Toi Arts and Culture Strategy, released for public submissions at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery last night.
In the course of the visit there were many pleasant surprises for us besides the Dunedin painting in the Dunedin Room.
Some examples:
• Lord Provost Donald Wilson's enthusiastic focus on past and ongoing links with Dunedin when he delivered a welcome to New Zealand dignitaries (including New Zealand's Governor-General), delegates and artists at a cocktail reception for the New Zealand contingent at Edinburgh.
• Bagpipes belting out Pokarekare Ana and the New Zealand national anthem from the Princes St Gardens as grey squirrels danced on the lawns and sunset cast pink light across the Old Town's ragged stone skyline.
• A large treeless open space called Arthur's Seat, a volcanic ice-carved prominence like Castle Rock, rubbing shoulders with the CBD.
• The Edinburgh Tattoo's astonishing international audience: an estimated 350 million television viewers.
• The eagerness expressed by everyone we met to increase the interaction between Edinburgh and Dunedin.
