Edinburgh travel guide

Top 10 sights in Edinburgh

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Stephencdickson · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Edinburgh Castle

   A fortress on a volcanic plug that has been occupied since the Iron Age and besieged more often than any other place in Britain. St Margaret's Chapel of about 1130 inside it is the oldest building in Edinburgh, the crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny are kept here, and a gun is fired at one o'clock every day but Sunday.

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   2© 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Holyrood Palace

   The monarch's official residence in Scotland, at the foot of the Royal Mile. Mary Queen of Scots' apartments survive, including the room where her secretary Rizzio was stabbed to death in front of her in 1566, and the boards still carry a stain that visitors are told is his.

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   3© 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Scottish National Gallery

   Scotland's national collection, free, in a Playfair building on the Mound. Titian's two Diana canvases painted for Philip II hang here on long loan, and the Scottish rooms — Ramsay, Raeburn, McTaggart — are what the London galleries cannot show.

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   4© No machine-readable author provided. Maccoinnich~commonswiki assumed (based on c · CC BY-SA 3.0

   National Museum of Scotland

   Two joined buildings: a Victorian hall of 1861 in cast iron and glass, and a sandstone extension of 1998. Its objects include Dolly the sheep, stuffed and turning slowly in a case, and part of the Lewis chessmen, whose division with the British Museum is a standing Scottish grievance.

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   5© 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   St Giles' Cathedral

   The High Kirk of Edinburgh, where John Knox was minister from 1559 and preached the Reformation into effect. The Thistle Chapel of 1911, built for Scotland's order of knighthood, is a small masterpiece of Gothic revival tucked into its south side.

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   New Town

   Built in stages from 1767 to a grid designed by James Craig, who was twenty-six and won the competition, and now the largest surviving area of Georgian architecture anywhere. It was laid out to draw the wealthy out of the filthy Old Town, and it worked.

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7. 

   7© W. Bulach · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Old Town

   The medieval city on the ridge, where closes and wynds run downhill off the Royal Mile in a herringbone. Space was so short inside the walls that tenements reached ten and more storeys, which made this one of the most densely populated places in Europe.

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   8© Enric · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Holyrood Abbey

   An abbey founded in 1128 by David I after, the story goes, a stag with a cross between its antlers stopped him being killed. Scottish kings were married and buried in it; the roof fell in 1768 and the ruined nave stands beside the palace.

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   9© Syrio · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Rosslyn Chapel, Roslin

   A chapel begun in 1446 and never finished, whose interior is carved over every surface — a hundred and ten green men, plants that look like American maize decades before Columbus, and the Apprentice Pillar. Dan Brown's novel multiplied its visitors tenfold, which paid for the roof.

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    10

    HMY Britannia

    The royal yacht from 1954 to 1997, in which the Queen made nine hundred and sixty-eight official voyages before the government decided it could not be replaced. She is berthed at Leith and open, with the state apartments and the crew's quarters both shown.

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   Scott Monument

   A Gothic spire of 1844 over a seated statue of Walter Scott, sixty-one metres high and blackened by soot that no cleaning has removed. Two hundred and eighty-seven narrow steps climb it, and it is the second-largest monument to a writer in the world.

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   2© Camer01 · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Midhope Castle

   A late sixteenth-century tower house on the Hopetoun estate at Abercorn, four kilometres west of South Queensferry outside Edinburgh. It is a Category A listed building, and its exterior stood in for Lallybroch in the television series Outlander.

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   3© Kristijrn · CC BY-SA 4.0

   National Monument of Scotland

   The national monument on the summit of Calton Hill in Edinburgh, commemorating the Scottish dead of the Napoleonic Wars. Its inscription describes it as a memorial of the past and an incentive to the courage of future generations; money ran out in 1829 and only twelve columns of the intended Parthenon were ever built.

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   4© Kim Traynor · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Grassmarket

   An old market place, street and event space in Edinburgh's old town, lying in a hollow well below the surrounding streets at the southwestern foot of Castle Rock. Public executions were held on it until 1784, and the castle stands directly overhead.

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   5© billfromesm · CC BY 2.0

   Edinburgh Zoo

   A zoo of 1913 on the side of Corstorphine Hill, run by a charity and best known for its king penguins, who have paraded out of their enclosure and back since a keeper left a gate open in 1951 and they simply followed him.

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   Dalkeith Palace

   A country house at Dalkeith in Midlothian, seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch from 1642 to 1914. The present building was raised between 1701 and 1711 on the site of the medieval Dalkeith Castle, and its park is open to the public.

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   7© Peter van der Wielen · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Borthwick Castle

   A castle nineteen kilometres southeast of Edinburgh, east of the village of Borthwick, protected by steep slopes on three sides. Built for Sir William Borthwick in 1430, it is among the largest and best-preserved medieval fortresses in Scotland; Mary Queen of Scots sheltered here in 1567.

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   8© Photograph by Stuart Yeates, from en:Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Craigmillar Castle

   A fourteenth-century castle three miles from the centre, better preserved than most Scottish ruins. Mary Queen of Scots came here to recover in 1566, and it was during that stay that her nobles drew up the bond to murder her husband.

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   9© Farwestern Photo by Gregg M. Erickson · CC BY 3.0

   St Mary's Cathedral

   The Scottish Episcopal cathedral in Edinburgh's West End. Its foundation stone was laid at Palmerston Place on 21 May 1874 and it was consecrated on 30 October 1879; George Gilbert Scott designed it, and its three spires are visible across the New Town.

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    10© RHaworth · CC BY 2.5

    Dalhousie Castle

    A castle at Cockpen in Midlothian, thirteen kilometres south of Edinburgh near Bonnyrigg. It was the seat of the Earls of Dalhousie, chiefs of Clan Ramsay, and parts of the fabric go back to the thirteenth century; it now operates as a hotel.

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