The New Town

Love it or loathe it, the Scott Monument is probably the second most famous of Edinburgh's landmarks. Dickens wrote to a friend: 'I am sorry to report the Scott Monument a failure. It is like the spire of a Gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground.' But its Gothic excess contrasts well with the clean classicism of the New Town, and is entirely appropriate to the romantic imagination of her most famous son. Not many people read Sir Walter Scott's historical novels these days-their rollicking wordiness is a bit much-but few other individuals have brought their native country to the world's attention so effectively.

In John Steell's statue, Scott sits wrapped in his shepherd's plaid, a book on his knee, his faithful deerhound Maida casting up an enquiring glance at her master more than twice life size. The pose is unheroic but also suggestive of what some resent about the author: his love of the rustic squirearchy and promotion of a kind of 'tartan idyll'. Decorating the monument are 64 statuettes of characters from the novels and Scottish history. The most clearly visible are the four on the first gallery: Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Lady of the Lake, Meg Merriless and the Last Minstrel.

As an engineering feat alone, the monument was quite an achievement. Its architect was an unknown called George Meikle Kemp whose ambitious design, modelled on the author's beloved Melrose Abbey, was assured of stability by sinking a shaft 52ft down to the solid rock to support a structure just under four times that height. Kemp never saw his great project finished, unfortunately drowning in the Union Canal one dark night in 1844, just before its completion.

Along with some coins, newspapers, maps and medals in a glass jar, buried in the foundations is a bronze plaque declaring that Scott's writings 'were then allowed to have given more delight and suggested better feeling to a larger class of readers, in every rank of society, than those of any other author, with the exception of Shakespeare alone'.

There are 287 steps up to the highest gallery, for magnificent panoramic views over the city and out to sea (if you're hesitating over the climb, remember that you will get an equally spectacular view from the top of Calton Hill).

Walk east along Princes Street, past Jenners, the longest established department store in the world, on your left, and the Waverley Steps, notoriously the windiest place in the city in a southwesterly, on your right. Ahead on the right you will see the bloated clock tower of the Balmoral Hotel.

Once the North British Railway Hotel, it was built in 1902, a lumbering but undeniably impressive blot on the landscape, and now one of the smartest and most luxurious hotels in the city. Waverley Station, at its feet, has the unusual distinction of being the only station in Britain to be named after a novel; attempts by British Rail to rename it some ten years ago were successfully opposed.

Turn your back on the Balmoral and you will see the Register House ( open Mon-Fri 9-4.45), the grand domed building over the road spanning the approach from North Bridge.