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Edinburgh Attractions
City Art Centre
City Art Centre, 2 Market Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1DE
0131/529-3993
Admission Free
Dynamic Earth
Holyrood Rd.
0131/550-7800
Apr-Oct daily 10am-6pm; Nov-Mar Wed-Sun 10am-5pm
Bus: 1 or 6
Admission charged
About a decade ago, a beer distributor donated its Edinburgh brewery to the city with the provision it be used for a permanent attraction with educational benefits for the community at large. The result is a stone amphitheater capped by a translucent tent. An interconnected series of galleries celebrate the natural diversity of the physical earth, with emphasis on the seismological and biological processes that led to the physical world we know today.
Edinburgh Castle
Castlehill, at the western end of the Royal Mile
0131/225-9846
Apr-Sept daily 9:30am-5:15pm; Oct-Mar daily 9:30am-4:15pm
Admission charged
No place in Scotland is filled with as much history, legend, and lore as Edinburgh Castle, one of the highlights of a visit to Edinburgh. It is believed the ancient city grew up on the seat of a dead volcano, Castle Rock. The early history is vague, though it's known that in the 11th century Malcolm III (Canmore) and his Saxon queen, later venerated as St. Margaret, founded a castle on this spot. The only fragment left of their castle is St. Margaret's Chapel, built in the Norman style, an oblong structure dating from the 12th century.
Edinburgh Zoo
134 Corstorphine Rd.
0131/334-9171
Apr-Sept daily 9am-6pm; Oct and Mar Mon-Sat 9am-4:30pm, Sun 9:30am-5; Nov-Feb Mon-Sat 9am-4:30pm
Bus: 2, 26, 69, 85, or 86
Admission charged.
This zoo is Scotland's largest animal collection, 10 minutes from Edinburgh's city center on 80 acres of hillside parkland offering unrivaled views from the Pentlands to the Firth of Forth. It contains more than 1,500 animals, including many endangered species: snow leopards, white rhinos, pygmy hippos, and many more. The zoo contains the largest penguin colony in Europe, with four species, plus the world's largest penguin enclosure. April to September: a penguin parade is held daily at 2pm.
Georgian House
7 Charlotte Sq
0131/225-2160
Apr-Oct Mon-Sat 10am-4:30pm, Sun 2-4:30pm
Bus: 2, 12, 26, or 31
Admission charged
Architecturally, the most interesting district of New Town is the north side of Charlotte Square, designed by Robert Adam. Together with his brother, James, he developed a symmetrical but airy style with an elegant reworking of Greek and Roman classical motifs. Their influence was widespread in Britain and America, especially in the U.S. South. Georgian House has been refurbished and opened to the public by Scotland's National Trust. The furniture in this Adam house is mainly Hepplewhite, Chippendale, and Sheraton, all from the 18th century. In a ground-floor bedroom is a sturdy old four-poster with an original 18th-century canopy. The dining-room table is set with fine Wedgwood china and the kitchen stocked with gleaming copper pots and pans.
Gladstone's Land
477B Lawnmarket
0131/226-5856
Apr-Oct Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm
Admission charged
This 17th-century merchant's house is furnished and kept in its original style. On the ground floor is a reconstructed shop booth displaying replicas of goods of the period, and an upstairs four-room apartment is furnished as it might have been in the 17th century. It is one of the stops as one walks along the Royal Mile. the house makes clear the crowded living conditions, even for those who were reasonably well off, before the construction of the New Town.
Grassmarket
Grassmarket is one of Edinburgh's nightlife centers, with numerous restaurants and pubs. An open area hedged by tall tenements and dominated by the castle, it can be approached from George IV Bridge, via Victoria St, an unusual two-tiered street clinging to the ridge below the Royal Mile. There are also some excellent shops in the area. The site of a market from at least 1477 to the start of the 20th century, Grassmarket was always the focal point for the Old Town. This was the main place for executions and over 100 hanged Covenanters are commemorated with a cross at the east end. The notorious murderers Burke and Hare operated from a close off the west end. Around 1827 they lured at least 18 victims there, suffocated them and sold the bodies to Edinburgh's medical schools. Leading off from the southeast corner, Candlemaker Row climbs back up to the George IV Bridge and Chambers St with the Royal Museum of Scotland and the University of Edinburgh's Old College.
Greyfriars Presbyterian Kirk (Church) & Kirkyard
Near the south end of George IV Bridge, at the junction with Candlemaker Row. It is directly opposite the new Museum of Scotland and the Royal Museum of Scotland. It is on bus routes 2/12, 23, 24, 27, 28-29, 40-42 and 45-47 and tour buses.
The church is open to visitors April-October, Monday-Friday, 10.30-4.30, Saturday 10.30-2.30. From November-March, Thursdays 1.30-3.30 and at other times by arrangement with the Visitors Officer.
Visitors are welcome at all services. Many visitors may be interested in the Gaelic services held at 12.30 pm on Sundays - the only weekly Gaelic worship in southeast Scotland.
High Kirk of St. Giles
High St.
0131/225-9442
Easter-Sept Mon-Fri 9am-7pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; October-Easter Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm. Sun services at 8, 10 and 11:30am and 6 and 8pm
Free Admission, but donation suggested
A group of cathedral guides is available at all times to conduct tours.
Built in 1120, and a short walk downhill from Edinburgh Castle, this church is one of the most important architectural landmarks along the Royal Mile. It combines a stone exterior with surprisingly graceful and delicate flying buttresses. One of its outstanding features is its Thistle Chapel, housing beautiful stalls and notable heraldic stained-glass windows. A particularly severe period in its history occurred between 1560 and 1572, when John Knox, the strict leader of the Reformation in Scotland, was its minister.
Holyrood Park
Edinburgh is blessed in having a real wilderness on its doorstep. The former hunting grounds of Scottish monarchs, it covers 1 sq mile of varied landscape, including hills, moorland, lochs and fields. The highest point is Arthur's Seat 823ft. high. This is an eroded stump of lava flow that erupted around 325 million years ago. It forms part of a volcano that includes Calton Hill and Castle Rock. The park can be circled along Queen's Drive by car or bicycle. There are several excellent walks within it.
Huntly House
142 Canongate
0131/529-4143
Mon-Sat 10am-5pm; during the Edinburgh Festival, also Sun 2-5pm
Bus: 1
Free Admission
Across from the Canongate Tolbooth is this fine example of a restored 16th-century mansion, whose builders preferred a bulky, relatively simple design that suited its role as a secular, rather than an ecclesiastical, building. Today, it functions as Edinburgh's principal museum of local history. The interior contains faithfully crafted reproductions of rooms inspired by the city's traditional industries, including exhibits devoted to glass molding, pottery, wool processing, and cabinetry, with a focus on the struggles of the workers who labored within.
John Knox House
43-45 High St.
0131/556-9579
Mon-Sat 9:45am-4:30pm
Admission charged
John Knox is the reformer who founded the Scottish Presbyterian church. His late 15th-century house, with its timbered gallery, is characteristic of the properties that used to line the Royal Mile. The Oak Room has a frescoed ceiling and contains Knox family memorabilia.
Lincoln Monument
This monument was erected in 1893. It was dedicated to the thousands of American soldiers of Scottish descent who lost their lives in America's Civil War.
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