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Places to visit
in Edinburgh.

It’s 20:40 in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh

A city of closes, crags and galleries.

Edinburgh is built on old volcanoes, with a castle on one, a royal park round another and a city of stone between them. The medieval Old Town tumbles down its ridge in a herringbone of closes and wynds, while the Georgian New Town is laid out in calm, elegant streets. There are national galleries and museums, many free, and green hills to climb in the middle of town. Wear comfortable shoes for the cobbles. These are the places in Edinburgh we think are most worth your time.

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From our archive20 hours agoEdinburghThe Stones of ScotlandEdinburghJohnnie Walker Princes StreetEdinburghEdinburgh CastleEdinburghArthur’s SeatEdinburghMargaret Hall’s CairnEdinburghDynamic Earth

Edinburgh this autumn, in our photographs.

Six places in Edinburgh, each as we found it.

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Places to visit20 hours ago

Transreal Fiction.

It is home to the largest selection of imported sci-fi and fantasy in Scotland, and there are many rare American imports. The classics of both genres are on the shelves, along with many obscure titles you won’t find in the chain bookshops.

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From our guide20 hours ago

Duddingston Loch.

A natural freshwater loch within walking distance of the Royal Mile? You’d better believe it. Duddingston Loch provides a blast of natural wilderness in the confines of the city. Surrounded by reedbeds and woodland, it serves as a fine habitat for herons and wintering wildfowl, and otters have even been spotted.

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Places to visit20 hours ago

Cockburn Street.

A curving Victorian street of turreted tenements, built in the 1850s to carry the Royal Mile down to Waverley station.

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From Issue 10 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 1019 hours ago

Craft and Soul

Hugo Macdonald and James Stevens on Bard, their shop and gallery on the shore at Leith, where Scottish craft and design are chosen for the stories behind them.

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Just opened19 hours ago

The Palm Houses at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh reopen after their restoration.

The ironwork has been repaired, thousands of panes of glass replaced and the sandstone conserved. Inside, under the glass domes, are rare tree ferns, and around 1,000 ladybirds have been let loose to keep pests off the plants.

Photograph: Nicole’s POV on Google MapsSee Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
From our guide19 hours ago

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

With a collection that encompasses everyone from Bonnie Prince Charlie to Emeli Sandé – and all housed in a vast Neogothic bastion of red sandstone – this was the first purpose-built portrait gallery in the world when it was opened in 1889. It’s still a wonderful attraction.

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Did you know19 hours ago

Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.

Polish soldiers bought Wojtek as a cub in Iran in 1942. Pets were banned on the ship that was to carry them to Italy, so they made him a soldier, with a name, a serial number and a paybook, in the 22nd Artillery Supply Company. He learned to salute, was later promoted to corporal, and is said to have carried shells at the Battle of Monte Cassino. After the war he came to Scotland with his unit, and in 1947 he was given to Edinburgh Zoo, where he lived until he died in 1963, aged 21. Since 2015 a bronze statue of Wojtek and a Polish soldier has stood in Princes Street Gardens.

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Places to visit19 hours ago

Allermuir Hill.

The most northerly of the main Pentland summits, 493 metres high, with a trig point and a view indicator looking straight down on Edinburgh.

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Today19 hours agoEdinburghEdinburgh CastleAttractionEdinburghCraigmillar CastleAttractionEdinburghBlackness CastleAttraction

Today calls for a castle.

8° and clear in Edinburgh. Dry enough for the ramparts and the walk round the walls.

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From our archive18 hours ago

The Gardener's Lodge, Edinburgh.

This pretty red sandstone cottage in Princes Street Gardens was originally home to the head gardener. Today it is an unlikely sight in the middle of the city, a bucolic...

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True or false18 hours ago

True or false: Charles Dickens took the name Scrooge from a gravestone he misread in Edinburgh's Canongate Kirkyard.