Scotland – Edinburgh

Distance: 9½ km/6 miles
Time: 3hrs+
Type: City tour
Where: Circular tour of Edinburgh city centre
Start/End: National Gallery, The Mound (NT255738). End: The Castle (NT253735)
Terrain: Mostly level pavements throughout but with rough footpaths on two ascents
Maps: OS Explorer 350; Landranger 66.

Edinburgh, said Robert Louis Stevenson, is ‘a profusion of eccentricities, a dream in masonry and living rock.’ You can see what he means: the formal New Town below the precipice of the Old; a maze of closes and vennels and snug howffs just a few minutes’ walk from the wild volcanic outcrop of Arthur’s Seat; palace and parliament opposite each other; water, crags and distant mountains all within view. For centuries in the Old Town, rich and poor rubbed shoulders. In the 1790s the rich built their New Town to the north, filling in Nor Loch (now Princess Gardens) and building bridges to the Old Town. Long before then in the Old Town, new streets were laid on top of old and the city’s poorest went underground to live in vaults. New and Old, above and below: Edinburgh truly is a city for walking.

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