Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Edinburgh and the Lothians
Venerable, dramatic Edinburgh, the showcase capital of Scotland, is a
historic, cosmopolitan and cultured city. The setting is wonderfully striking:
perched on a series of extinct volcanoes and rocky crags which rise from the
generally flat landscape of the Lothians, with the sheltered shoreline of the
Firth of Forth to the north. “My own Romantic town”, Sir Walter Scott called it,
although it was another native author, Robert Louis Stevenson, who perhaps
best captured the feel of his “precipitous city”, declaring that “No situation
could be more commanding for the head of a kingdom; none better chosen
for noble prospects.”
he centre has two distinct parts: the unrelentingly medieval
Old Town
, with its
tortuous alleys and tightly packed closes, and the dignified, eighteenth-century
Grecian-style
New Town
. Dividing the two are
Princes Street Gardens
, which runs
roughly east-west under the shadow of
Edinburgh
Castle
.
Set on the hill that rolls down from the fairy-tale Castle to the royal
Palace of
Holyroodhouse
, the Old Town preserves all the key landmarks from its role as a historic
capital, augmented by the dramatic and unusual new
Scottish Parliament building
,
opposite the palace. A few hundred yards away, a tantalizing glimpse of the wild beauty
of Scotland's scenery can be had in
Holyrood Park
, an extensive area of open countryside
dominated by
Arthur's Seat
, the largest and most impressive of the city's volcanoes.
Among Edinburgh's many museums, the exciting
National Museum of Scotland
houses ten thousand of Scotland's most precious artefacts, while the
National Gallery of
Scotland
and its offshoot, the
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
, have two of
Britain's finest collections of paintings.
In August, around a million visitors flock to the city for the
Edinburgh Festival
, in
fact a series of separate festivals that make up the largest arts extravaganza in the world.
On a less elevated theme, the city's distinctive pubs, allied to its brewing and distilling
traditions, make it a great
drinking
city. Its four
universities
, plus several colleges, mean
that there is a youthful presence for most of the year. Beyond the city centre, the most
lively area is
Leith
, the city's medieval port, now a culinary hotspot with a series of great
bars and upmarket seafood restaurants.
he wider rural hinterland of Edinburgh, known as the
Lothians
, mixes rolling
countryside and attractive country towns with some impressive historic ruins. In East
Lothian, blustery clifftop paths lead to the romantic battlements of
Tantallon Castle
,
while nearby North Berwick, home of the
Scottish Seabird Centre
, looks out to the
gannet-covered Bass Rock. he most famous sight in Midlothian is the mysterious
fifteenth-century
Rosslyn Chapel
, while West Lothian boasts the towering, roofless
Linlithgow Palace
, thirty minutes from Edinburgh by train. To the northwest of the
The Stone of Destiny
p.63
John Knox
p.68
The World's End Burgh
p.69
Edinburgh's controversial
Parliament
p.71
Greyfriars Bobby
p.73
The National Galleries' collection
p.77
Water of Leith walkway
p.80
Robert Louis Stevenson
p.86
Top 5 budget accommodation
options
p.89
Top 5 must-try restaurants
p.91
Top 5 beer gardens
p.96
Hogmanay
p.98
The Fringe
p.102
Legends of Rosslyn Chapel
p.108