Edinburgh is the crown jewel of the British Isles. It brings to life the daydreams of anyone seeking the medieval, the regal and the outright fantastic. At its heart is the Royal Mile, a cobblestone artery spanning the centuries, running beneath a rock-topped castle to a baroque palace. Edinburgh is pure Gothic romance meets House of the Dragon — like the dream of a mad God, or at least that’s how Scottish poet Hugh MacDiarmid described it.
Yet much is modern about the Scottish capital, and the emotion and vitality of the city can be felt in its annual festivals — particularly during the Edinburgh Fringe and Hogmanay, the three-day party celebrating the New Year. And the city’s museums, galleries, restaurants and hotels are every bit as grand as you’d hope for from such a marvelous setting.
From museums to fine dining, you’ll never be bored in Edinburgh. To help you plan, here are our top 10 favorite experiences.
1. Storm the battlements of Edinburgh Castle
For many visitors, this royal bastion mounted with steeples and turrets is Edinburgh. The historic, bejeweled regalia of the Honours of Scotland in the Crown Room, the Romanesque 12th-century chapel and the One O’Clock Gun scaring the bejesus out of unprepared passers-by below the walls are all city landmarks. Come for bloody Jacobite history and tartan glamour but stay for a day steeped in Scottish identity.
On a self-guided tour, you’ll tumble through time, entering via the dry ditch and drawbridge under a gatehouse arch adorned with crow-stepped skews, thistles, roses and stained glass. The portcullis gate leads towards the battery and various military museums, memorials and grand halls, with spine-tingling views of sheer cliffs, the New Town and Leith in the distance. Everywhere, you’ll see the signatures of kings, queens and pretenders to the throne.
Local tip: Lunchtime, when the One O’Clock Gun is fired, is the busiest time of day. Visit at 9:30am or after 3pm to dodge the worst of the crowds. Coming in August? Book ahead for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which transforms the Esplanade into a spectacle of massed pipes, drums and dancers lit by fireworks and starlight.
2. Meander down the historic Royal Mile
Compact and easily navigable — at least, if you have comfy shoes and an umbrella for those all-too-common stormcloud days — Edinburgh is a joy to explore. But as tempting as it is to watch the world go by from a cafe or pub table, there’s much to discover on the downhill daunder (the Scots word for “stroll”) to Holyrood Park along the Royal Mile.
As you wander past a fanfare of stone townhouses, bridges, kirks (churches) and once-fortified gateways, it’s easy to be mesmerized by the ever-changing light. Dark histories linger down the crooked steps of narrow wynds (alleyways) and inside wonky tolbooths. Don’t rush past St Giles’ Cathedral, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, or the Canongate Tolbooth without paying your dues.
Book-ending the road’s eastern end is the Scottish Parliament Building and Palace of Holyroodhouse, an architectural juxtaposition of the city’s past and its future.
Detour: Continuing along George IV Bridge from the Royal Mile, the National Museum of Scotland requires planning to explore due to its sheer size. It’s the country’s largest museum, with galleries covering everything from Ancient Egypt to the Kingdom of the Scots.
3. Climb Arthur’s Seat
Edinburgh’s Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, frequently climbed Arthur’s Seat, and who wouldn’t given the chance? This mini mountain serves up the Highlands in microcosm, with a ruined chapel, hidden lake, heathery frills and (almost) high altitude thrills, with sweeping views from its 251m (823ft) summit.
For those interested in geology, it’s also a dormant volcano that last blew its top around 342 million years ago – if Tolkien had grown up in Scotland, this could have been his Mt Doom.
Planning tip: You can follow various walking paths for the assault on Arthur’s Seat, with the fastest approach taking around an hour. For the full Highlands effect, plot a route via the ruins of St Anthony’s Chapel and Dunsapie Loch.
4. Hit the beach, whatever the weather
On sparkling sunny days, when the Firth of Forth glitters silver and gold, bathers, surfers and sailors sculling in dinghies take to the capital’s beaches. They ebb and flow from the suburbs to the city fringes, offering sea and sand, community vibes and an appealingly Caledonian, not Caribbean, atmosphere.
Portobello is the spot for end-of-the-pier style hijinks, with a lovely promenade combining fish and chips shops, ice cream parlors, an amusement arcade and a two-mile stretch of fudgy sand. Northwest of the center, Cramond offers low tide excursions to a castaway island topped by WW2 gun bunkers, offering views of the unique architectural wonder that is the Forth Rail Bridge.
Detour: Edinburgh has three castles, not one. The classic Scottish tower house of Lauriston Castle, with its pretty grounds and gardens, overlooks the Firth of Forth, a short walk from Cramond.
5. Get to know Edinburgh’s galleries, inside and out
Not everything beautiful about Edinburgh is visible from the pavement. Behind the walls of some of the city’s grandest buildings are eruptions of color and evocative brushstrokes, with Edinburgh laying claim to a succession of knockout museums worthy of any European capital city.
You could make a whole day out of touring the city’s four National Galleries in search of works by Vermeer, Titian, Rembrandt, Velázquez and homegrown talents such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow Boys.
Just off Princes Street, The National Gallery houses the country’s greatest art collection, while Modern One and Modern Two are the high-water mark of contemporary Scottish art. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, meanwhile, is set inside a neo-Gothic, red sandstone pile that is as awesome as the art itself. The clincher? They’re all free to visit.
Local tip: The galleries all have their own flavor, and happily, the same can also be said of their restaurants and cafes. Each is ideal for fuelling an art binge, particularly Paolozzi’s Kitchen inside Modern Two, named after Eduardo Paolozzi, Edinburgh’s pop art pioneer.
6. Dine like a laird or lady
Edinburgh is Scotland’s most multicultural city and you’ll catch scents of Pakistani, Thai, Mexican, Syrian and Nepali cooking wafting from food stalls and restaurants. To please the visiting crowds, though, the city is also packed with delights from the Scottish larder, and organic meat, wild game and creel-caught shellfish are always on the menu.
If you’re in the mood for one of Edinburgh’s destination restaurants, a memorable night out starts at Timberyard, a terrific Michelin-starred restaurant in a gorgeous warehouse once used for storing theater costumes and props.
Of similar note, The Witchery is a dead ringer for a gothic TV drama set, with velvet curtains, flickering chandeliers and rare steaks and razor-sharp shellfish to match the Gothic mood. Other eateries distilling the essence of the modern Scots kitchen include The Lookout by Gardener’s Cottage, The Spence, The Little Chartroom and Leith’s Heron.
Local tip: Even if you’re dining on the cheap, you need to know how to eat like you belong here. While the rest of Britain puts salt and vinegar on fish and chips, the Edinburgh default is salt and “sauce” – a watery brown ketchup.
7. Stroll the Water of Leith walkway
A wormhole into Edinburgh’s most beautiful suburbs, this riverside path north of the New Town offers an escape from the trams and traffic and a fascinating history lesson. It runs from Murrayfield, home of Scottish Rugby, meandering past overhanging trees and squares of Georgian-era townhouses towards the historic mills of Dean Village.
If there’s an unexpected, time-stopped view of Edinburgh, then this is it. From here, the river winds past Antony Gormley statues emerging from the water and the Doric columns of St Bernard’s Well to the neighborhood of Stockbridge, where you can enjoy some of the finest pubs, restaurants and independent stores in the capital.
Detour: As one of the greenest cities in the UK, Edinburgh is alive with parks and private, key-accessible gardens. A short stroll from Stockbridge, the Royal Botanic Gardens is a deep breath of fresh air, with rock gardens, twisted trees, Asian shrubbery and glasshouse marvels — it’s a veritable Narnia of miniature worlds.
8. Experience the myriad stages of the Fringe
Sweary puppets, silent discos, zombified drag queens and live performances in taxis, toilets, a library and inside a giant inflatable purple cow. This is just a snapshot of what you might find at August’s annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest celebration of the arts on the planet.
You could spend a lifetime here and never truly get to grips with the Fringe. Take your pick from around 1650 shows and 55,000 performances spread across 300 venues, over a full calendar month of comedy, cabaret, dance, music, theatre, circus, burlesque and the visual arts. Many visitors decide – quite reasonably – that experiencing it once will never be enough!
Planning tip: To narrow down your shortlist of must-see shows, read newspaper reviews, seek out word-of-mouth recommendations and spend time in the beer gardens of the big four venues — Assembly, Pleasance, Gilded Balloon and Underbelly. Here, you’ll meet some of the performers as they flier their shows, and you might even land a freebie ticket.
9. Read up on the mysteries of Greyfriars Kirkyard
Arguably Edinburgh’s most famous modern citizen, JK Rowling helped put this creepy graveyard on the map by naming several of her Harry Potter characters after former Edinburgh residents buried below the tombstones. Likewise, the wizarding world writer took inspiration from Victoria Street (for Diagon Alley) and George Heriot’s School (for Hogwarts).
But it’s the cemetery that sees Edinburgh at its most corporeal. These days, the surrounding streets are packed with Gryffindor scarf-wearing guides; join them or, if ambiance matters, simply slip into the shadows of the kirkyard alone (best at sunset).
Detour: Sounding like something from a horror film, The Real Mary King’s Close is an entombed labyrinth of frozen-in-time streets and claustrophobic rooms hidden beneath the Royal Mile. Following the Black Plague of 1645, which killed thousands of the city’s poorest citizens, the streets were sealed off for centuries — amazingly, they were only rediscovered in 2003. A tour of this time capsule is a dip into Edinburgh’s darker side.
10. Sip whisky like a true Scot
Let yourself go – you’re in the world’s whisky capital after all! Whether you choose to savor a single malt dram in a leather upholstered chair or sip a whisky cocktail perched on a speakeasy bar stool, both super-fans and whisky newbies are simply spoiled these days. Nowhere has a better selection of bars dedicated to the spirit than Edinburgh.
Reliable go-to watering holes include Whiski Rooms, The Bow Bar, the Amber Bar inside the Scotch Whisky Experience and SCOTCH at The Balmoral Hotel. Edinburgh is now also home to two start-up distilleries – the Port of Leith Distillery is the only vertical distillery in the country and friendly rival Holyrood Distillery was the first maker to produce Scotch in the city for nearly a century.
Detour: Fancy a stunning view with your dram? Then add the 1820 Rooftop Bar inside Johnnie Walker Princes Street to your shortlist — with the epic castle vista, you’ll feel like all of Edinburgh is in the palm of your hand.
This article was first published Sep 17, 2021 and updated Aug 13, 2024.