Discover Edinburgh - Discover Scotland: Experience the Best of Scotland - page 171

GEORGIAN HOUSE
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| Historic Building

(NTS; Click here ; 7 Charlotte Sq; adult/child £6/5; 10am-6pm Jul & Aug, to 5pm Apr-Jun & Sep-Oct,
11am-4pm Mar, to 3pm Nov) The National Trust for Scotland's Georgian House has been
beautifully restored and furnished to show how Edinburgh's wealthy elite lived at the end
of the 18th century. The walls are decorated with paintings by Allan Ramsay, Sir Henry
Raeburn and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Calton Hill
Calton Hill (100m), rising dramatically above the eastern end of Princes St, is Edinburgh's
acropolis, its summit scattered with grandiose memorials dating mostly from the first half
of the 19th century. It is also one of the best viewpoints in Edinburgh, with a panorama
that takes in the castle, Holyrood, Arthur's Seat, the Firth of Forth, the New Town and the
full length of Princes St.
You can reach the summit of Calton Hill via the road beside the Royal High School or
by the stairs at the eastern end of Waterloo Pl. The largest structure on the summit is the
National Monument Offline map Google map , an overambitious attempt to replicate the
Parthenon in Athens and intended to honour Scotland's dead in the Napoleonic Wars.
Construction - paid for by public subscription - began in 1822, but funds ran dry when
only 12 columns had been completed.
Looking like an upturned telescope - the similarity is intentional - and offering even
better views, the Nelson Monument Offline map Google map ( admission £3; 10am-7pm
Mon-Sat & noon-5pm Sun Apr-Sep, 10am-3pm Mon-Sat Oct-Mar; all Leith St buses) was built to
commemorate Admiral Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar in 1805.

Leith
Two miles northeast of the city centre, Leith has been Edinburgh's seaport since the 14th
century and remained an independent burgh with its own town council until it was incor-
porated by the city in the 1920s. Like many of Britain's dockland areas, it fell into decay
in the decades following WWII but has been undergoing a revival since the late 1980s.
Old warehouses have been turned into luxury flats, and a lush crop of trendy bars and res-
taurants has sprouted along the waterfront. The area was given an additional boost in the
late 1990s when the Scottish Executive (a government department) moved to a new build-
ing on the Leith docks.