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Edinburgh Map

The last stop on my northern England / Scotland tour in 2010 with Marcy, we spent many days exploring this beautiful and historic city. I was very pleased both with Marcy's company and with the mostly lovely weather that we had, and the Dunediners were kind with us to a fault.   

Photo List (Total 501 Photos)

Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour

• Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile (112 photos) - This is the oldest part of Edinburgh. The Castle sits on a rocky promontory overlooking the city, and continues to be an active military installation. The Royal Mile is essentially a single street with multiple names (Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate), which runs along a descending spine that defines the core of Edinburgh, and was the first settled area outside the Castle. This area also has many "Closes", which are courtyards accessible from the main street. I have put in this gallery photos of the Royal Mile and the Castle taken from various other vantage points in the city, though you will also see some photos in other galleries as well. The gallery moves from views of the Castle from afar, then our tour through the Castle, then views of the rest of the Mile from afar, then the Mile proper.

• Grassmarket and area (42 photos) - The area just south of the Royal Mile, but down the hill a ways, is known as the Grassmarket. These photos are from there, and from the surrounding area, including George Heriot's School, the National Museum of Scotland, and the streets in the area.

• New Town and nearby (111 photos) - "New Town" was the first part of the city to be developed after the "Old Town", and consists of many streets of similar stone Georgian buildings. The planned district is quite comely in person, but I find in photos it is somewhat repetitive and underwhelming. Nonetheless, here are many photos, starting with Princes Street, and moving north through the heart of the New Town. This gallery also includes some areas outside New Town, but towards the north, that we walked through on our way to the Botanic Garden, and also shows our trips to the Dean Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art on a drizzly Sunday.

• Calton Hill and area (57 photos) - Calton Hill is a park scattered through with monuments, offering lovely views of the city. This gallery has view within the park, and of the city from the park. Also included are photos of the general area, including the Old Calton Burial Ground, our hotel, buildings near our hotel, and the nearby Waverley Station.

• Royal Botanic Garden (44 photos) - One of the first places we went in Edinburgh was the Botanic Garden, perhaps because we were so impressed with the glasshouses in Glasgow. These were orderly and beautiful, but somehow less exciting than our previous iterations. This gallery shows a few external views of the Garden, but more inside a massive maze of Palm Houses that we walked our way through.

• Scottish Parliament and Holyrood Park (70 photos) - Marcy and I headed out to Holyrood Park, a mountainous orb that looms over the city, for a walk. We passed the new Scottish Parliament at it's base, then continued up, for a walk that was rather longer than anticipated. Nonetheless, it was quite beautiful, and offered lovely views of the city in all directions. We took the Radical Road, which runs just below the Salisbury Crags, and then up to Arthur's Seat, the pinnacle of the park. We descended the other side on our way to Craigmillar Castle.

• Craigmillar Castle (36 photos) - Though I fussed about going to Craigmillar Castle, and though it was a long walk from Holyrood Park and we got very hungry in the meantime, in the end I enjoyed it greatly, partially because Marcy and I were essentially alone there, to wander its partially ruined rooms, stairways and grounds. Built between the early 15th and mid 17th centuries, it made me think to some extent of being in a Fisher-Price Castle, but as an adult. Marcy and I wandered its complicated stairways and halls separately, coming across each other unexpectedly and at random intervals. This photo set also includes some photos after our walk through Holyrood, through a fairly poor neighbourhood called Duddingston near Craigmillar.

• Leith (28 photos) - Leith, formerly a town separate from Edinburgh, lays on the coast of the sea. Formerly a shipbuiding centre, it is just distant enough from Edinburgh to have a very different feel. Marcy and I went here on our last night, originally to see an antique storehouse (which was fascinating in itself), but we explored the area and ended up staying for supper and a play, a suitable way to spend our last evening out together. These photos start with Georgian Antiques, and then show older buildings clustered mostly around the Water of Leith.

• One big panorama (1 photo) - One badly stiched but massive panoramic photo.