Edinburgh City Guide

Edinburgh Sights

A better view around every corner. Lead on Macduff!

As dark, dramatic and incorrigibly romantic as a Pre-Raphaelite landscape, Edinburgh castle lords it over the city, letting loose a daily blast of cannon to remind you who's boss. Wind your way along the Royal Mile, losing yourself amongst a riddle of closes, vaults, tunnels and old-town tenements.

Edinburgh Nightlife

Other cities would kilt for this many warm whisky-soaked pubs.

Like the country's natural landscape, Edinburgh's nightlife is divided into highlands and lowlands, with the heights epitomised by the operas and theatre of the Edinburgh Festival and the lowlands lying in the gutters of a pub-crawler's paradise. Indulge your own Jekyll and Hyde nature and partake of both.

Shopping Edinburgh

The cashmere will shear some extra bulk from your wallet.

Edinburgh doesn't have quite the same retail excitement as Glasgow, but all the classic Scottish exports can still be bought here. High quality woollen textiles and knitwear - especially cashmere - will trim your wallet down some. Look for the 'Made in Scotland' label (it's extremely rare these days).

Arthur's Seat

Mountain, National park

Arthur's Seat, an extinct volcano of 251m (823ft) situated smack bang in the middle of the city's doorstep wilderness, is the focal point of Holyrood Park. The former hunting ground of Scottish monarchs, the park covers 650 acres (260 hectares) of moorland, lochs and fields. Arthur's Seat forms part of a volcano that includes Calton Hill and Castle Rock.

Princes Street Gardens

Garden

These beautiful gardens lie in a valley once occupied by the Nor' Loch (North Loch), a boggy depression that was drained in the early 19th century. They are split in the middle by The Mound - around two million cart-loads of earth dug out from foundations during the construction of the New Town and dumped here to provide a road link across the valley to the Old Town. It was completed in 1830.

Edinburgh Castle

Views, Castle, Architectural highlight

The brooding, black crags of the Castle Rock, shouldering above Princes St Gardens, are the very reason for Edinburgh's existence. This rocky hill - the glacier-worn stump of an ancient volcano - was the most easily defended hilltop on the invasion route between England and central Scotland, a route followed by countless armies over the centuries.