The Royal Mile

Walking down Edinburgh's High Street could well be the definitive tourist experience. People have been flocking to do just that for the last 700 years, and it might come as something of a surprise that this major visitor attraction is still very much the living heart of the city. Inevitably there are parts where 'heritage culture' has gone over the top, but the inhabitants and proud possessors of the Royal Mile don't yield too easily to hopeless nostalgia.

The history of what was once the most populous street in Europe is written on its stone face, take it or leave it, and as you walk along the street you can't help but feel closer to what makes Edinburgh tick than anywhere else in the city.

The walk takes you in a straight line from Edinburgh Castle all the way down the hill to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, passing the major sights of St Giles Kirk and Parliament House, and on to Arthur's Seat in Holyrood Park.

The main street, which changes its name from Castlehill to Lawnmarket to High Street to Canongate as you head east, is crowded with 'lands' (or tenements) many storeys high, and punctuated by tiny cobbled 'closes' or alleys off to each side.

The walk could easily be done in an hour and a half, but would take more than a whole day if you visited every attraction en route. The best policy is to keep a close eye on the weather: there's little point in trudging up Edinburgh's little mountain in Holyrood Park in the pouring rain, but a look around Holyrood Palace or the new 'Our Dynamic Earth' exhibition would be a rewarding alternative.

The Mile That Made the City

As the ice sheets moved east a few millennia ago, they dumped debris behind the hard volcanic plug of the Castle Rock, leaving the distinctive 'crag and tail' formation, a long ridge gently sloping down from the solid plug. This landscape, with its hollow to the north dammed to create the Nor'Loch, and steep slopes to the south, has defined the growth of the city. It has ensured that the distinctly medieval groundplan has remained unaltered, but the Royal Mile echoes most impressively with the history of the 16th and 17th centuries: the Reformation, the struggles of the Stuarts to hang on to power, and the eventual loss of Scottish independence.

Any melancholy that this last event might have provoked is rapidly being dispelled today as the city becomes the legislative capital of the country once again. The Royal Mile has waited for the day, not always patiently, for over 250 years.

This walk starts on the Esplanade in front of the castle.

Edinburgh Castle

Open daily 1 April - 30 Sept daily 9.30am to 6.00pm; 1 Oct - 31 Mar 9.30am to 5.00pm. Last ticket sold 45 minutes before closing. 
Adult (aged 16-59) £13.00
Child (aged 5-15) £6.50
Concessions £10.30

Edinburgh Castle is the most famous place in Scotland-a proper castle, with winding stairs, ruined walls, immense ramparts and lots of hiding places for children to enjoy. As if that weren't enough, its crowning glory is the superb view of the city all around. Thanks to the romantic sensibilities of the Victorians, who were responsible for the restoration of Edinburgh's most ancient holy place, St Margaret's Chapel, and since the construction in 1927 of the awe-inspiring Scottish National War Memorial, the castle has also become something of a symbol of the nation's spiritual life.

Edinburgh Castle has now really come into its own as a national monument run by Historic Scotland and as the country's most popular tourist attraction. It does become overcrowded in the summer, but remains very good value for money, and a visit here in any weather is unlikely to disappoint.

As well as a melodramatic but informative self-guided audio tour, your ticket buys access to the Honours of Scotland (the nation's crown jewels), St Margaret's Chapel, three military museums, many parts of the castle itself, including the Great Hall and Queen Mary's apartments, a perfectly preserved Victorian military prison, and a curious pet cemetery. The War Memorial on its own can be visited free on application, as well as by ticket holders.

The Esplanade-the old parade ground-makes a very grandly sited car park with magnificent views. During the Military Tattoo in August, the massive banks of seating temporarily erected here offer even more impressive views to ticket holders. Looking south from the Esplanade, you will have the best possible view of the extraordinary building which is George Heriot's School.

Avoid being run down by one of the frequent tour buses executing sweeping turns, by sticking to the edge and mulling over some of the memorials. Most commemorate soldiers of different regiments who fell in the wars in South Africa. At the entrance to Castlehill is a statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig and on the left, is a modern memorial to the witches burned here until as recently as 1722.

The impressive 19th-century gateway to the castle is guarded by two sentries and statues of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace. Look out for the plaque on the gateway which commemorates the section of castle rock, now buried beneath the esplanade, which was legally granted to Nova Scotia in Canada by Charles I and has never been taken back. Above the gate an inscription reads 'Nemo Me Impune Lacessit', the royal motto that is also engraved on Scottish pound coins, which roughly translates as 'no one messes with me and gets away with it.' The army joke is that here it simply means 'mind your head'.

Buy a ticket and enter the castle through the main gate.

St Margaret's Chapel

St Margaret's Chapel stands in a spectacular position commanding the best views northeast from the highest point on the castle rock. It's a beautifully simple building, one of the smallest churches in Britain and the oldest in Edinburgh.

A case could easily be made for its being the birthplace of the city. The chapel was constructed on the orders of Queen Margaret, the saintly Saxon wife of Malcolm 111 Canmore, but was not finished until about 20 years after her death in 1093. Brought up in Hungary, she is credited with bringing some continental sophistication into Scotland and was renowned for her charity, regularly feeding 300 beggars a day at the castle gates. Her son David I relocated the royal court here from Dunfermline and founded Holyrood Abbey. Robert the Bruce had the rest of the castle destroyed by the Earl of Moray, but relented over the chapel and ordered its restoration. It has been restored several times since, most recently in 1993 to commemorate the 900th anniversary of Margaret's death.

The interior has not been radically altered since the days of David 1. The shafts of the chancel arch are 19th century, but the arch itself, with its zigzag teeth, is probably original. The beautiful stained glass is 20th century, by Douglas Strachan (who also did much of the glass in the War Memorial, see below), and shows William Wallace in the company of saints Andrew, Ninian, Columba and Margaret. Anyone called Margaret can join the St Margaret's Chapel Fellowship and contribute to the flowers placed in the chapel on her saint's day, 16 November.

Scottish National War Memorial

On the north side of Crown Square, the castle's inner sanctum, the strong Gothic facade of the Scottish National War Memorial is impossible to mistake. Even the muffled crackle of fellow visitors' audio-guides hardly detracts from this moving place. The building itself, designed by Robert Lorimer in the 1920s on the site of the castle's church, has been justly described as a piper's lament in stone. Inside, the names of about 150,000 Scottish soldiers who gave up their lives in the two world wars are recorded in leather-bound books beneath regimental bays illuminated by stained glass. The windows alone, many of them by Douglas Strachan, are worth close examination: they include the Women's Window, showing a shell factory and workers in the fields, and dispassionate depictions of the machinery of war. Beyond these Halls of Honour, the heart of the memorial is founded on the solid castle rock, with a shrine containing the names of the dead on Rolls of Honour.

Honours of Scotland

The Honours of Scotland exhibition is also in Crown Square. The exhibition is cunningly arranged to ensure everyone in turn gets a decent look at the crown, the sceptre and the sword, recently joined by the Stone of Destiny, but it can be quite a long haul. Part of the crown was used at the coronation of Robert the Bruce, making it considerably older than the one in London, and it was last worn by Charles 11 on I January 1651. The sceptre and its dazzling globe date from two centuries before that, while the intricately carved sword of state was a present from Pope Julius 11 to James IV.

As for the Stone of Destiny, no one really knows it's just a simple block of sandstone, prompting some to claim that it's not the real thing, used to solemnize the inauguration of Scots kings at Scone since the 9th century and recorded as being richly carved; some believe it was Jacob's pillow when he dreamed about his ladder; and some subscribe to the theory that the original is being kept in hiding, passed down from generation to generation, until Scotland is a nation once again. Whatever, this one was stolen by Edward I of England in 1296, and was kept under the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. It was stolen from there by a group of Scottish Nationalists in 1950, carted off in a battered van to Arbroath, and slightly damaged in the process. The British authorities took a dim view of these high jinks, and after retrieving the stone they hung on to it down in London until they saw fit to return it. When they did, in 1996, it came across as an unsuccessful publicity stunt by the embattled and unpopular Conservative government of the time. It's hard to say whether the stone will ever be used again.

The Palace and Great Hall

Also in Crown Square is the Palace with Queen Mary's Apartments, which have recently been faithfully restored internally to look as they would have done on James VI and l's last visit in 1617. Here you can see the tiny room where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to Union Jack, James VI of Scotland and I of England. One of the old soldiers who act as guides will open the little window to reveal the vertical drop down which the baby was lowered to be baptised. He's likely to be more reticent about the mystery surrounding the baby's identity. King James himself was always unsure of his legitimacy, partly because he looked nothing like any of the other Stuarts. Further doubt arose in 1830 after a bad fire, when a small coffin was found in the wall of these apartments (although the bones were never formally identified as human). The coffin and its contents were put back in the wall. The smart money is on James being Lord Darnley's son by Mary (he was even meant to look a bit like him); another theory stems from the fact that King James VI looked rather like the son of the Countess of Mar, Mary's babysitter.

The Great Hall was the home of the Scottish Parliament until shortly after James's son Charles I ascended to the throne. Its splendid beamed ceiling was only uncovered again late last century. The room now houses a formidable armoury of Scottish weapons.

Other Castle Sights

Elsewhere around the castle you can wander along the battlements and explore the different stages of the fortification's development; marvel at the size of the mighty Mons Meg, the famous cannon so big that someone gave birth in its barrel; visit the vaults where French prisoners of war were held when they were put to laying the cobbles outside and where people like the privateer John Paul Jones were dealt with (before he founded the US navy), along with David Kirkwood, the 'Red Clydesider'; look around a perfectly preserved Victorian Military Prison, which was later used to lock up political prisoners like the Marxist John Maclean; and peer down into the well-tended Pet Cemetery where the faithful companions of the castle's commanding officers are provided with a glorious resting place way above their station.

If you happen to be in the castle at one o'clock, it's worth making your way to the Mill's Mount Battery to see another reminder of the army's presence in the castle, the firing of the One O'Clock Gun. It's been fired almost every day since 1861.

Leave the esplanade and enter Castlehill at the top of the Royal Mile itself. On your left is Goose Pie House.

This is the house the 18th-century poet Allan Ramsay built for himself, known as Goose Pie House because of its peculiar octagonal shape, now much altered. Some of the extensions and alterations were undertaken by Patrick Geddes-the man responsible for preserving much of the Royal Mile, and a pioneer of town planning-who lived here towards the end of the last century.

On the other side of the street is Cannonball House. This is the starting point for very good volunteer-guided walks down the Royal Mile during the Festival.

On the door of the house, notice the 'tirling pin' on its sounding bracket, as in the rhyme:

Wee Willie Winkie rins thro the toun
Upstairs and downstairs in his nicht goun
Tirlin ' at the window, crying at the lock:
Are the weans in bed noo, for its nigh on ten o'clock?

It's a rare survival of the polite form of door knocker from the days when people scratched at each other's doors instead of banging on them.

The house gets its name from a cannonball lodged above the first-floor window facing the castle. Legend has it that the ball was part of the barrage fired by government troops from the castle aiming to dent Bonnie Prince Charlie's bonnet at Holyrood. Unfortunately it's more likely that it marks the gravitational height of the water supply for the old reservoir over the road, a 19th-century tank for the water first pumped into the city in 1681, serving the wells all the way down the Royal Mile.

Opposite Cannonball House is the Tartan Weaving Mill situated in the Edinburgh Old Town Weaving Company, right next door to Edinburgh Castle Esplanade.

You can feel and touch the threads that are prepared for weaving, see and hear the amazing high speed powerlooms in action. At the weaver's cottage you can meet a real craftsman and then have a go at making some tartan cloth yourself - a great photo opportunity for your friends and family!

Take your time to enjoy the full exhibition which shows how tartan is woven, from the moment when the sheep is sheared right upto the making of a kilt and the history of Highland Dress through the ages.

The next stop down the hill on the tourist trail, given over to the Scots' favourite tipple, is the Scotch Whisky Experience (open 7 days).

The Scotch Whisky Experience

The Scotch Whisky Experience beside Edinburgh Castle, reveals the history, mystery and romance of Scotch Whisky making. Start by nosing and tasting a Scotch whisky with one of our expert guides who will help you to reveal the secrets in the glass. Find out how the amber, water of life is produced and then one of the experienced tour guides will take guests through the amazing differences between whiskies from the Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside and Islands. Visitors then meet the resident ghost, the Master Blender and enjoy a barrel ride through the history of Scotch Whisky. The tour is available in 10 different languages.

Relax in Amber Restaurant and enjoy the very best of Scottish produce. For the enthusiast we have our own Whisky Appreciation Society.

Both our Bar and Shop are stocked with over 300 whiskies and whisky liqueurs - something for everyone.

Whisky Tastings and Private Events can be catered for in our beautiful Private Reception Rooms.

Cross the road to visit Camera Obscura and World of Illusions (open every day from 9.30am until 6.00pm and in July and August until 7.30pm).

These two early 17th-century tenements were added to by a lady optician in the middle of the 19th century to become Short's Observatory, whose crowning glory was the Camera Obscura. This Victorian 'Eye in the Sky' has fascinated visitors for 150 years with its live moving panorama of the city. You will be captivated by this unique experience as your guide entertains you with stories of Edinburgh's exciting past. You can spy on people and even pick them up in your hand! You can also enjoy spectacular 360° rooftop panoramas with free telescopes from rooftop terrace.

The building still contains the Camera Obscura in the curious domed turret on top of the tower, but it now also hosts the World of Illusions, three fascinating floors of interactive visual illusions and other hands-on exhibits. You can capture your shadow, shake hands with your ghost, swap heads with a friend and walk on water on the incredible living floor. There is also an impressive collection of holograms. These entrancing 3D pictures appear, change and disappear before your eyes.

You can also discover extraordinary 3D views of Edinburgh and spy on the city from live viewcams which you control to zoom in and out. New exhibits are always being added to the collection including most recently an incredibly amusing automaton of two singing cats with a dog accompanying them on the piano, and a heat detecting thermal camera which shows your hot spots in vivid colour on a giant screen.

Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is open every day of the year with the exception of Christmas Day, from 9.30 in the morning until 6pm with extended opening hours in July and August until 7.30pm. You can see more of the fascinating exhibits on the website: www.camera-obscura.co.uk

Continue to the foot of Castlehill and the Highland Kirk of Tolbooth St John's.

Called the Highland Church because it once held services in Gaelic, St John's has now been

rechristened The Hub and converted into the administrative headquarters of the Edinburgh International Festival. This richly decorated neo-Gothic marvel was designed in 1839 by James Gillespie Graham and Augustus

Pugin, the man who gave the Houses of Parliament in London their distinctive look. With its skybound steeple and spire, the tallest in the city (240ft), it was built on the site of the Victoria Hall, the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland at the time of the Disruption.

There's a Café and restaurant run by the same people as the Atrium and Blue at the Traverse Theatre, and a general purpose hall for visiting artists to strut their stuff.

Continue down the Royal Mile, past the back entrance to the Church of Scotland's Assembly Hall and the Ensign Ewart pub, to reach the Lawnmarket.

In the Middle Ages this widening of the way was ordained as the place where all cloth (or ilawn') was to be sold. Also on sale were 'butter, cheise, wool and sichlike gudis'. The activity greeting visitors as they emerged from the West Bow and the Grassmarket must have been bewildering. The market was only finally cleared away at the end of the 19th century.

At the top of the Lawnmarket, on the left hand side, is the entry to Mylne's Court.

Now one of the most attractive halls of residence for students at the university, this was once one of the smartest addresses on the Royal Mile. It was designed at the end of the 17th century by the mason who had a hand in Charles lI's extension to Holyrood Palace and it reflected the superior tastes of the well-to-do at the time, and can reasonably claim to be the city's first proper square. It was the subject of award-winning sympathetic restoration in the 1960s, right down to the thick glass in the half-timbered windows.

Cross the road again, and on your right is Riddle's Court.

Riddle's Court gives a fair idea of what many of these courts looked like in the 18th century: note the doorway with 1726 inscribed upon it. This is where David Hume bought his first house in 1753 and where he started his History of Great Britain, his readable exercise in debunking a few contentious issues in church history. Deeper within this court you are heading further back in time, to the home of a wealthy 16th-century burgess called John McMorran, who hosted lavish banquets here for King James Vl and his Queen. He met an unexpected end: on 15 September 1595, he went with a group of officers to break up a sit-in by the sons of the gentry at the Royal High School, then situated in the Canongate, who were demanding a holiday. As he approached, they shot him in the head. The protest came to a shocked and abrupt conclusion, but by James Vl's royal command the culprit was never brought to justice, probably because his father happened to be the Chancellor of Caithness.

Return to the Lawnmarket and you are opposite Gladstone's Land (31 March to 30 Jun, daily 10-5; 1 Jul to 31 Aug, daily 10-7; 1 Sep to 31 Oct, daily 10-5).

Gladstone's Land

Gladstone's Land is the best surviving example of a typical 17th-century tenement (apartment block) in Edinburgh.

Emphatically not connected with William Ewart Gladstone, the great British prime minister, the place was bought in 1617 by a merchant called Thomas Gladstanes, who was responsible for extending the 16th-century block at the front, supporting it on the two round arches that were once a common feature of most shopfronts on the High Street. It is thought that he lived with his family on the third floor only and rented out the others.

The house gives a good idea of how buildings were forced to grow higher and higher because of the lack of space on the narrow ridge, while its stone frontage was a response to the frequent fires in the city.

In 1935 it was one of the first properties to be bought by the National Trust for Scotland, who eventually (in the late 1970s) restored the building to its original state inside and out. Externally, the semi-shuttered and fixed glass windows are the most obvious signs of this work, but it's well worth venturing inside, not least to see the original decoration uncovered on the beamed ceilings: a painted profusion of flowers and fruits in wonderfully mellow colours.

Passing through the reconstructed 17th-century shop, you find youself in a welcoming, intimate house, not particularly grand, where you can easily imagine yourself living quite comfortably, with maybe just a few extra mod cons. There's a one-bedroom holiday flat to let on the fourth floor if you actually want to try. The three rooms that you can visit are on the first floor, which would have been the smartest and most sought after in the block. They're sanitized obviously, with some attempt to recreate the lack of light but thankfully none to recreate the smell of the 'cruisie' lamps, which burned fish oil.

Helpful and well-informed volunteer guides are ready to answer any questions that the fabric and furnishings might provoke, like the sturdy little baby-walker, or the large oak four-poster from Aberdeenshire in the painted room. All the rooms would have been multi-purpose, hence the fold-up bed in the kitchen. Some of the ceilings are made of plaster with mouldings of the same age as those in Moray House (see pp.98-9) and Croft-an-Righ. Three of the ceilings have been painted freehand (rather than stencilled, as was more common). There's also a room decorated as it might have been in 1730, with green panelling, a mirror and sconces.

When the Mound first opened at the end of the 18th century, the close was the most direct route from the Old Town to the New Town. A plaque on the entry to the close commemorates the visit of Dick Steele, the early 18th-century wit and writer for The Spectator, who stood a banquet for some impoverished locals in a tavern, where he declared that he had 'drunk enough of native drollery to compose a comedy'. Sadly no record remains of his having done so.

Luckless Lady Stair

Around the same time, the close was home to the beautiful but filthy-tongued Elizabeth, Lady Stair, who suffered badly at the hands of drunken men.

After jumping from a window to escape her murderous first husband, Lord Penrose (who then left the country), she learned of his attempted remarriage abroad by seeing in a tinker's mirror a vision of her brother attacking him at an altar. Her brother returned from overseas and confirmed the story.

When the Viscount died a few years later in I706, she vowed never to remarry, but was forced to save her reputation by marrying the Earl of Stair, who had contrived to appear half-naked at her prayer~window on the High Street. Only slightly less brutal than her first husband, the Earl thumped her hard enough to draw blood but then renounced any drink that was not offered him by her fair hand.

Lady Stair's House was heavily restored in the late I 9th century, and is now the Writers' Museum {open June-Sept Mon-Sat 10-6; Oct-MayMon-Sat 10-5; during the Festival also Sun 2-51, celebrating the lives and works of Scott, Stevenson and Burns.

Leave the courtyard by the entrance on the left-hand side, which takes you back on to the Lawnmarket opposite Brodie's Close.

In the late I770s Deacon Brodie was a respected town councillor. The O. J. Simpson of his day, no one could believe that someone quite so famous could be quite so criminal, and the way people still talk about him today, you might be forgiven for thinking he had been a murderer, not merely a thief. Something about his outer veneer of polished respectability and his inner delight in dodging the law has made him a local hero.

He was famously the model for Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde. Now you can have a respectable cup of tea in his old house and admire his expansive kitchen. Appropriately enough, a popular pub named after him now stands directly opposite the High Court of Justiciary, or criminal courts. There are several shops along this stretch of the Royal Mlle where you could buy a tartan souvenir, a woolly jumper to keep out the Edinburgh weather, or even a pair of made-to-measure hand-knitted tartan socks.

Carry on down the Royal Mile (crossing over Walk 11/, to the imposing statue of David Hume.

This very vague likeness, with its empty tablet and ironic classical pose, was commissioned by the Saltire Society and unveiled in 1997. Apparently the sculptor-Alexander Stoddart-originally proposed a Mount Rushmore-like sculpture carved out of Salisbury Crags. This prime positron is more appropriate to the philosopher's whole-hearted engagement with human affairs, for this is where the High Street begins.

This popular photo opportunity has narrow steepness giving on to wide views of the New Town below. Just next door are the offices of the Old Town Renewal Trust, with displays on the problems facing the conservation of the area.

Continue just beyond Hume, to Advocate's Close, on the left.

Cross the street to Parliament Square, set in solemn splendour around St Giles. Before going into the church, pause at the heartshaped set of stones in the pavement just beyond the statue of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch.

This is all that remains to mark the site of the 'Heart of Midlothian', Walter Scott's nickname for the old Tolbooth, the forbidding building that served as council chambers, police station and town jail for several hundred years before being demolished in 1817. These stones are now the only place in Edinburgh where you're allowed to spit; in fact it's meant to be positively lucky to do so.

The absence of the Tolbooth certainly affords plenty of room to appreciate the huge west front of the church, to which it was actually connected until 1632 when Charles I ordered 'an end to this profanation', giving the council cause to build Parliament House).

High Kirk of St Giles

Whether or not you find this massive edifice attractive, there's no denying its central place in the history of the capital, its country and its High Street. Supposedly constructed on the site of a chapel founded by monks from Lindisfarne in the 9th century, the huge building can be read as a miniature of the city as a whole, with its medieval tower standing proud above a smooth late Georgian facade. Plans are afoot to replace the gilded finials on its famous crown spire, missing since about 1800, which might go some way towards giving the grey old pile a bit of dazzle and glory.

The cathedral got its name from the patron saint of cripples, lepers and nursing mothers, a hermit who survived in the wilderness thanks to his tame deer.

The building once housed a relic in the form of a piece of the saint's armbone, mounted in gold with a diamond ring on its finger, donated to the church in 1454 by Willlam Preston; at the east end of the Preston Aisle, just before the Thistle Chapel, the oldest known example of the Edinburgh coat of arms features St Giles' deer hind.

This was the medieval burgh's first parish church, begun around 1140. The only surviving evidence of its 12th-century origins is a single scallop capital, at what was once the north entrance to the nave on its northwest inside corner. The tower dates from the 14th and 15th centuries, and was capped with its distinctively Scottish crown spire in around 1486. But most of the present structure's blackened ashlar exterior was the work of William Burn in the 1830s.

The interior is another story: the four stone pillars supporting the tower are all that remains of the Norman church destroyed by Richard 11 of England in 1385, but much of the rest of the interior is 15th-century. During the Reformation, the most illustrious period in St Giles' history, John Knox preached here to over 3000 people, inveighing against the idolatory of St Giles; his statue stands forbiddingly by the front door. Later, one Jenny Geddes famously threw her stool at the preacher using Laud's liturgy, part of the attempt to impose the English prayer book, shouting 'roes the false loon dare say Mass at my lug?' Still often known as St Giles' Cathedral, strictly speaking it hasn't been one since 1689, when the Church of Scotland did away with bishops.

The planned restoration work will include the notoriously gloomy interior. In the north aisle can be seen the tombs of the leaders of the bitter religious wars: Argyll, the famous Covenanter, and Montrose, the leader of the Royalists. Characters commemorated on the right hand side of the nave include Thomas Chalmers and Robert Fergusson, and there's a plaque reading 'Thank God for James Young Simpson's discovery of chloroform anaesthesia'.

Robert Lorimer's Thistle Chapel 11910) is also worth seeking out. The Order of the Thistle was created in the 15th century by James 111 and the chapel features fine stained glass by Douglas Strachan. Other stained glass to look out for is by the socialist arts and crafts artist William Morris and the pre-Raphaelite William Burnelones.

Underneath the cathedral is an unpretentious, reasonably priced Café where you can take shelter and tea in the company of women of a certain age and lawyers from over the road in Parliament House.

Cross Parliament Square to take a look inside Parliament House.

Like the castle, Parliament House is an accessible piece of the historic city that is still very much alive. The parliament for which it was built lasted 68 years, before the Act of Union in 1707. At the Last Riding (opening) of parliament, the procession up the street from Holyrood must have been a spectacular sight: first came the commissioners for burghs (each with an attendant); then came the commissioners for shires (each with two attendants); the barons, viscounts and earls followed behind (each with a train-bearer and three attendants); then came the heralds, with splendid tabards, riding in front of the Honours of Scotland (the crown, sword and sceptre), each carried by their hereditary bearer; next came the Lord High Commissioner, the Duke of Queensberry and the Dukes (with gentleman train-bearers and eight attendants each), followed by the Marquises (with their six attendants); the Duke of Argyle brought up the rear with a squadron of Horse Guards. The new parliament has vowed that there will never be such ceremony again.

Inside, the extraordinary hammerbeam ceiling is a wonder in itself, with its great beams of Danish oak pointing down in a threatening manner with decorative corbels. The roof is the best preserved part of the original building, the front being remodelled much later by Robert Reid in the early 19th century, in imitation of Robert Adam, for the Court of Session-the function the place still serves today.

Apart from the roof, other things to look out for include the small late 19th century fireplace with bas-relief scenes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice; the statues of justice and mercy by Alexander Mylne ( 1637) outside the south door were originally over the main entrance; most unusual of all, perhaps, is witnessing the scene that the journalist James Bone described in 1926:

Counsel themselves when not in court or consulting near their box are walking up and down their ancient hall where once the Scottish Parliament sat. The ritual is to march in pairs facing towards one another at the turn like officers on board ship. Up and down they go. . . the tragedy and the comedy of the Scots Bar.

Around the walls are portraits of the 18th- and 19th-century lawyers who took hold of the reins of power when the parliament was dissolved, men like Monboddo, Kames, Hailes, Dundas of Arniston and Henry Dundas, Henry Erskine and even, unsuccessfully, Robert Louis Stevenson. There are two particularly fine statues: one of Duncan Forbes by Roubiliac, probably the first marble statue in Scotland, and one of Walter Scott at his ease.

As you leave Parliament House you will be confronted by the statue of Charles 11 as a Roman emperor astride a heavy charger.

The oldest lead statue in Britain, put up in 1685, it was originally going to be of Oliver Cromwell, but the council hastily changed their plans at the Restoration. Later, in the 18th century, they painted it white, which prompted James Boswell to write:

The milk-white steed is well enough,
But why thus daub the man all over,
And to the swarthy Stuart give
the cream complexion of Hanover.

The statue is nicknamed 'Two-faced Charlie' because of the little face attached to the buckle on the back of his suit of armour.

Go around the back of the cathedral to come back out on to the High Street by the Market Cross.

The Mercat Cross was the stone symbol of the medieval Burgh's trading privileges. The capital of the present cross is early 15th century, with dragons emerging from the foliage, but otherwise it's a 19th-century replica or as good as, paid for and positioned by W. E. Gladstone and, like many of its type, not really a cross at all, being topped with the unicorn of Scotland.

In its original position at the top of Fishmarket Close, the cross would have witnessed just about every event of royal importance that happened in the city: it flowed with wine when James IV rode into the city with his new bride in the early 16th century; some years later the man who had held the castle for his granddaughter Queen Mary, Kirkcaldy of Grange, was hanged at it.

Royal proclamations have always been made from it, notably that of Charles II's accession in 1649 on condition that he accepted the National Covenant.

Two years later the anti-Covenanting General Montrose was hanged in front of it, a year before the Royal Arms was torn down by an angry mob.

Another couple of years and Cromwell was proclaimed protector at the cross, only for the basin's spouts to flow with claret again six years later when the monarchy was restored in 1660. All the magistrates drank to the king on bended knee, throwing the glasses over their shoulders and breaking '300 dozen'. But then in 1682 the Solemn League and Covenant was ceremonially burned by the hangman here, and seven years later William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen from it.

Finally it was used in 1745 to proclaim James Vlil as King with Bonnie Prince Charlie standing by to press the claim, though later In the year the Jacobite standards were burnt at its foot. It's not that surprising perhaps that it fell over ten years later and had to wait for the reformer Gladstone to bring it back, after an absence of more than a hundred years.

Cross once more to the north side of the street, to the grand entrance to the City Chambers.

The building of what was the Royal Exchange in the mid 18th century was a sign of a new security in the city after the upheaval of the '45 uprising. Even so, dealers were initially reluctant to use it, being used to conducting their business outside in the open air. It provides the first hint of the Georgian developments that were to come In the valley below, although the arcaded screen you now see on the streetffont, with its simple war memorial, is a much more modern addition.

The remarkable statue in the courtyard, Alexander taming Bucephalus by John Steell, made the sculptor's reputation and ensured that he would find plenty of work adorning the New Town. A plaque records the fact that the building went up over Craig's Close, which was where the Cape Club used to be frequented by the poet Robert Fergusson. Also buried beneath the building is Mary King's Close, which can be visited.

Continue down the other side of the street and take a look into Old Fishmarket Close.

The eminent judge and 19th-century memorialist Lord Cockburn wrote that, in the previous century, this was:

"where fish were thrown out on the street at the head of the close, whence they were dragged down by dirty boys and dirtier women, and then sold unwashed-for there was not a drop of water in the place-from old rickety, scaly wooden tables, exposed to all the rain, dust and filth: an abomination the recollection of which greatly impaired the pleasantness of the fish at a later hour of the day."

Its residents-the likes of the rich jeweller George Heriot, and later the English spy and novelist Daniel Defoe; and also traditionally the town's hangman- would no doubt have been perfectly used to the stench.

Continue down past the Police Museum next door and, during the Festival, through the crowds outside the Festival Fringe Society, a few doors further on, to New Assembly Close.

Here there is a surprising Georgian building belonging to the Faculty of Advocates, whose Roman Doric columns look quite out of place in this part of town. It was designed in 1813 by Gillespie Graham, as St David's Masonic Chapel, and is now the home of the Law Society of Edinburgh.

Carry on until you come to the tall steeple of the Tron Kirk.

Much altered since it was first built in the early 17th century to absorb some of St Giles' congregation, the Tron church is named after the market weighbeam that stood in Hunter Square behind it. Services here were known as the Maiden Market' because of their popularity with the fashionable set of the day. A fire in the 1820s destroyed the original steeple, permanently silencing the bell that the poet Robert Fergusson described as a iwanwordy, crazy, dinsome thing'.

For many years this was the traditional place to see in the New Year, before the celebrations recently became more professionally packaged. Now the church is occupied by the Old Town Information Centre 10 (0131) 557 1700; open daily in summer).

During the excavations for the centre, another old close was discovered, named Marlin's Wynd after the Frenchman who claimed to have paved the High Street. With a little imagination, it now offers a fascinating glimpse into what 17th-century Edinburgh streets were really like. Hunter Square, behind the church, has recently been the subject of an ambitious urban renewal scheme, responsible for some carefully placed bronze fruit baskets by the Scottish artist lan Hamilton Finlay. The Tron stands at the busiest crossroads on the Royal Mile, where traffic thunders over the Bridges to the Southside and north to New Town.

Somewhere beneath here is the 'Union Cellar' where the nobles putting their signatures to the Treaty of Union were forced to flee from the disgruntled crowds.

Cross over the Bridges and walk past the Crowne Plaza Hotel, a partly successful modern attempt to imitate a High Street 'land' or tenement, to Paisley Close, on the other side of the street.

Above the entrance, adorned with the Anglo-Scottish inscription 'Heave awe' chaps, I'm no' dead yet' is the bust of a youth. In 1861 the boy was a lucky sur vivor dug out of the rubble of a collapsed land that killed 35 out of a suggested total of about 100 inhabitants. Clearly not all of them were at home at the time.

To visit Trinity Church and the Brass Rubbing Centre go down Chalmer's Close across the road.

Trinity Church was one of the grandest in Edinburgh, originally founded in 1462 where Waverley Station now stands, and forced to suffer the indignity of being relocated. It was demolished in 1848 and rebuilt here some 20 years later with the original stones after they had been not very carefully stored on Calton Hill. Partly demolished some more soon after, only the apse now survives In the medieval stone. Two-thirds of the original altarpiece are now housed in the National Gallery on the Mound.

The main reason for a visit here though is the Brass Rubbing Centre (open June-Sept Mon-Sat 10-6; Oct-May Mon-Sat 10-5; during the Festival also Sun 2 - 5. It is is run by enthusiastic helpers and there's a wide variety of different patterns and figures to try out, from the impossibly complex to the really very simple. It's not a bad introduction to church history either.

Emerge back on to the Royal Mile from Chalmer's Close and, a few doors further down on the other side of the road, you can visit the Museum of Chiidhood (open Mon-Sat 10-5, 2-5 during the Festival.

Founded by a man who hated children and was keen to emphasize the difference between a Museum of Childhood and a Museum for Children, this place now happily fulfils both functions. Some younger children may become frustrated by the tempting and untouchable array of toys behind glass, but there's an activity area and fun library for them. Nostalgic children aged 30 and over will be delighted to recognise some of their childhood toys and intrigued by some of the examples of the toys their grandparents might have played with. There's also an impressive though rather disturbing doll collection.

Almost immediately opposite the museum is Moubray House.

Built around 1462 and distinguished by its outside stair, Moubray House is one of the oldest houses on the Royal Mile, with some 16th- and 17th-century additions and alterations. Daniel Defoe briefly edited the Edinburgh Courant here in 1710.

Next door to Moubray House is John Knox's House.

John Knox's House

Open Mon-Sat 10-4.30; admission payable.

Saved from destruction by its association with the great man, John Knox's House juts out into the High Street as obstinately as the preacher himself expounded his beliefs.

It is not even certain that the author of A Trumpet Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women and other works ever even lived here, although the owner of the house was a Catholic besieged in the castle-and Knox would have enjoyed squatting rent-free in a Catholic's house. It is also claimed that this is the house to which he came to die.

By way of compromise, the exhibition inside also features the man who certainly did own the place in the 16th century, James Mosman, the goldsmith who was later hanged for his devoted allegiance to Mary, Queen of Scots. Knox, Mosman and Mary make an Interesting trio, which is well exploited. There's a reconstruction of Mosman's work bench, and the rather bare interior echoes to the sound of arguments between Knox and Mary. The walls are lined with well-presented historical panels and objects related to their lives, laid out in glass cabinets, while the beams and ceilings are crudely patterned in a style familiar from Gladstone's Land at the top of the Royal Mile. The house provides some idea of what 17thcentury accommodation might have been like. On the ground floor some medieval 'luckenbooths' or lockable shops were recently excavated and now tell the story of the Netherbow Port that adjoined the house.

Next door to John Knox's house is the Netherbow Centre.

The Netherbow Centre has a theatre, and a very good Café, and the bell from the Netherbow Gate can be seen in the courtyard.

Opposite the Netherbow Centre, in Tweeddale Court, you can visit the Scottish Poetry Society.

The society has a fascinating library and in the courtyard some of the old city wall can still be seen, including the Netherbow Gate, the great gate that marked the eastern boundary of the old city. It was demolished 250 years ago to ease the flow of traffic, and it had long been more useful as an excise checkpoint than as a defensive barrier. A couple of decades before it was taken down, Charles Stuart's Highlanders had simply pushed their way through into the city when the gates were opened to let a carriage leave. Its speedy demolition was also an indication of how rapidly things settled down after the '45. A carving above No.9 High Street gives a more accurate impression of how the Netherbow Gate might have looked than the fanciful bronze sign that now hangs outside the Netherbow Centre.

When you reach the Netherbow Centre, and the appropriately named World's End pub (the start of Walk 111, you are at the point where the burgh of Edinburgh ends and the burgh of Canongate begins.

Surprisingly perhaps, the Canongate's name has nothing to do with military ordinance, but refers to the Canons of Holyrood Abbey at the bottom of the hill and the 'gait'-or street-they lived on. Their founder David I authorized the separate burgh in 1143 and it was only just over 500 years later that Edinburgh acquired feudal superiority over it. As an undefended suburb of that city, there was plenty of room for the nobility to build grand houses with large gardens.

Continue down the street to see the best surviving example of these residences, on the right, beside a pair of stone gateposts topped with spiky spires.

Moray House was built for Mary, Countess of Home, and later bought by the Earl of Moray. Architecturally the balcony demonstrates the way these stone buildings initially imitated wooden construction techniques, supported on stone 'beams'. It's most famous though for being the place from which the Covenanting General Argyll looked down during a wedding reception on his arch enemy Montrose being wheeled to the scaffold. The house has been a teacher training college since the 19th century but, hidden away among the college's ugly buildings through the arch, it is still possible to find the little summer house where the Treaty of Union with England was plotted.

Further down, on the left-hand side, is the Canongate Tolbooth

The Tolbooth, with its clock sticking out, was built in 1592 in French style as the Canongate's equivalent of the Heart of Midlothian. It now houses the People's Story (open Mon-Sat 10-5, 2-5 during the FestivaL, an entertaining and amusing museum with a wealth of information and artefacts relating to ordinary lives in Edinburgh over the ages. Over the road is the Huntly House Museum of local history (same hours), not as grand a house as the name suggests, being in fact three town houses in one. The pious inscriptions on its timber frame once lent it the nickname 'the speaking house'. The 16th century house is more interesting than many of the displays, which are of the old-school, glass cabinet and wall-mounted variety.

Cross the road to see the peculiar Dutch gable of the Canongate Kirk

The church was built in 1688 as the parish kirk of Canongate when the Abbey Church of Holyrood was remodelled by James Vll as a Catholic Chapel Royal.

Its Dutch gable can be explained by the close trading links the burgh had with the Low Countries in the 17th century.

After his victory at Prestonpans in 1745, Charles Stuart held English officers captive in the church, where they could probably have heard the Jacobite celebrations going on down the road in Holyrood Palace.

The interior is fairly plain but the graveyard more than makes up for it, with an extraordinary view of the Greek buildings on Calton Hill and more than its fair share of notable dead. Adam Smith's grave is on the left of the gate as you enter. Further on is the grave of poet Robert Fergusson with its fond inscription by Robert Burns, who paid for the stone. That poet's beloved 'Clarinda' is also buried here, under her real name Mrs Agnes McLehose. The grave of George Drummond, six times Lord Provost and the driving force behind the New Town, can also be found. More controversially, leaning against the church's east wall is a stone slab claiming to mark the grave of David Rizzio, the brutally murdered secretary of Mary, Queen of Scots. Back on the streetside of the graveyard is the original Canongate Mercat Cross that used to stand just outside the Tolbooth just up the road. Nearby is an interesting modern sculpture of the mythical beast called a chimera.

Carry on down the street, keeping an eye out for Dunbar's Close, on the left-hand side.

This is a well-kept Edinburgh secret: a lovely little reconstruction of a 17th century garden. Next door is Panmure House, where the economist Adam Smith lived from 1778 to 1790.

Continue down to Queensberry House, the large house on the right.

This was the last great townhouse to be built In Edinburgh before the Union. It was built for the 2nd Duke of Queensberry who was instrumental in forging the Treaty.

As you approach the end of the Canongate, you will come to White Horse Close, on the left, from where the stagecoach to London used to leave.

Possibly named after Mary, Queen of Scot's horse, the White Horse Close has more famously lent its own name to a brand of whisky, and has been quaintly restored.

As you reach the foot of the Royal Mile you will see, directly in front of you, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and the new Scottish Parliament building.

The Palace of Holyrood House

Open daily April-Oct 9.30-6; Nov-Mar 9.30-4.30; last admission three-quarters of an hour before closing; guided tour only; adm. Garden open summer only; special exhibitions in winter.

More colloquially known as Holyrood Palace, this is the building that more than any other makes the mile royal. First opened to the public in the summer of 1909, It's still the official residence of the Queen in Scotland (it is surprisingly small), although the royal family tends to spend much more time at Balmoral in the Highlands. It has been suggested that the Princess Royal, a keen Scottish rugby supporter, might make more use of the palace in the future.

Approaching the main entrance, past the I9th-century fountain modelled on Linlithgow Palace's, the battered stonework of the left-hand tower with the conical turrets looks much older than the one on the right, and indeed it is, being the famous apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, built by her father James V in I 535.

He also began the west front with its heraldic decoration, but the righthand tower didn't go up until more than a century later, in the reign of Charles 11.

The Queen's ante-chamber and bedchamber are the climax of the short guided tour round the palace but the route takes you through some splendid Carolean rooms on the way. The great stair has an extraordinary baroque plaster ceiling, with ring upon ring of delicately modelled flowers and foliage supported by four angels waving the symbols of monarchy. It's a sumptuous prelude to Queen Victoria's dining room, relatively modest in its neoclassicism and still used by Queen Elizabeth 11, and then the throne room, where George IV was presented with the Scottish crown. These rooms are followed by five that are still decorated much as they would have been In the time of Charles 11, leading to his bedroom, where the ceiling depicts the 'Apotheosis of Hercules' complete with the King's favourite pet spaniels.

Linking the two towers is the Great Gallery, lined with a bizarre array of portraits of Scottish monarchs down the ages, every single one featuring the notable nose of Charles 11. The collection was commissioned by Charles to reinforce the monarchy's divine right to rule after the War of the Three Kingdoms of the 1640s, and it was turned out at a phenomenal rate, about a painting a week, over two years by the Dutchman Jacob de Witt. Each painting is carefully named and dated, and the overall effect still asserts a powerful sense of unbroken tradition.

The portraits would have looked down on the splendid scenes at the Palace when Bonnie Prince Charlie briefly brought life to the place again for five weeks after his victory at Prestonpans in I 745. Reproached for his lack of attention to the ladies, he pointed to his Highland soldiers and said, 'These are my beauties!' Not much later many of them were lying dead at Culloden.

After the gallery, at the end of the tour, it's his great great~grandmother, Mary, Queen of Scots, that everyone tries to picture in her tiny anteroom, shielding her favourite David Raze in vain from her drunken husband's murderous intentions. The two rooms in the top of the tower have been a shrine to the cult of Queen Mary for the last two hundred years at least, making them probably the most visited place in Edinburgh. Inevitably it's disappointing to discover that the bed and much of the furniture is not original, but thankfully any trace of the blood from Rise's fifty-one stabwounds disappeared long ago. Although the famous stain was just a remarkably successful piece of 18th-century tourist hype, the rooms make it easy to imagine the young Frenchwoman's dark days and long nights in these poky apartments. Or to remember her son running down the stairs in his underwear to receive the news, brought to him by a man who had covered 400 miles on horseback in two and a half days, that he was King of England as well as Scotland.

After the tour, you can look around the ruins of Holyrood Abbey, which is much older than the palace, although only a tiny part of the church founded by David I in 1128 survives.

It's difficult to visualise today just how grand the abbey would have been in the Middle Ages.

The story goes that David I founded it after falling from his horse when it reared up upon being confronted by an angry stag. The king looked up from the ground and saw a shining cross between the stag's antlers, and he vowed there and then to found a chapel on the spot. The abbey was used for the coronation of the doomed King Charles I in 1633.

To see the door of the original church turn right as you come in from the palace, walk to the end and it's on the right.

This door leads into the roofless nave from the cloisters, and there is also an excellent view of it from the gardens.

Leaving the palace complex, turn down Horse Wynd and at the bottom turn right into Holyrood Road

Holyrood Road is currently in the throes of the 'Holyrood Project' which will turn a notoriously drab thoroughfare into a thriving centre of Scottish affairs. Currently stealing the show is the great tent-like structure of Edinburgh's brand new visitor attraction, Our Dynamic Earth, a sensational interactive tour through 4500 million years of the earth's geological and natural history.

It will soon be upstaged, however, by the new Scottish parliament building next door, at the heart of the road's transformation. Designed by Enric and Benedetta Miralles from Barcelona, a complex of buildings is springing up on the site of the old Scottish and Newcastle Brewery. The new parliament will deliberately avoid appearing as a pompous palace of power; it actually promises to look something like a group of upturned boats. The Scotsman newspaper is also in the process of having a vast headquarters built for itself on Holyrood Road, and the street will undergo extensive landscaping, with new hotels, parks and pedestrian areas.

Alternatively leave the palace, and enter Holyrood Park via the coachhouse exit, tufting left at the end past the car park

Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat

This is the ideal place to escape the hugger-mugger of the Old Town and get clean away from the crowds: Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat are without doubt one of the very best things about Edinburgh. Few other cities can boast their own miniature Highland mountain for their recreation nor their very own extinct volcano. The profile of Arthur's Seat seen from the west has been aptly compared to a crouching lion, and, however easy the ascent of it may look, the Scottish weather can easily turn a harmless ramble up its flanks into a terrible ordeal.

The climb to the top of Arthur's Seat is rewarded by a magnificent 360-degree view of the city, with the sea to the north and east and the lovely Pentland Hills to the west.

If you are in a car follow the three-mile tarmac road, the Queen's Drive {closed to traffic on Sundays, which circles the hill;you can park at its highest point by Dunsapie Loch and make the 20-minute walk from there straight up the smooth grassy slope to the summit.

On foot from Holyrood Palace, walk clockwise awat from the palace car park, past the 'no entry to traffic' sign, and up the wide footpath past St Margaret's Well to the ruins of St Anthony's Chapel. Rest here and enjoy the fine views of St Margaret's Loch below, always teeming with birdlife.

Then head towards the top through a lovely secluded mini-glen called the Dry Dam. Unless you want a very steep scramble at the end, you'll have to bear left to the top of the corrie, with its fine views of Dunsapie Loch and Duddingston, and then bear round to the right to join the gradual ascent from the loch.

At sunset they sometimes look as though they're made of solid gold. It was at the southern end of these crags that James Hutton developed his 'Theory of the Earth' in 1788 and helped lay the foundations of modern geology.

The park was first properly enclosed by James V and named after his palace beside it. Mystery surrounds the origin of the name Arthur's Seat. In the earliest records it's just called 'the Crag' and it has been suggested that the romantic name may be a corruption either of the Gaelic Ard-na-Said, meaning 'height of arrows', referring to the dark age hill fort and hunting grounds, or of Ard Thor, meaning the height of the thunderer'.

It's been a very long time indeed since the hill really did thunder, as an active volcano 350 million years ago when Scotland was on the Equator. The most obvious of the park's geological features is the long line of ruddy cliff called Salisbury Crags, formed by a great layer of solidified lava or basalt resting on sandstone.

At the bottom of Salisbury Crags runs the Radical Road, built at Walter Scott's instigation by a group of unemployed weavers from the west of Scotland. If you haven't already been enlightened by Our Dynamic Earth, the rocks in the park are best explored with the help of an excellent illustrated guide called Discovering Edinburgh's Volcano, published by the Edinburgh Geological Society (available in all good bookshops priced £1), pointing out where to find the likes of intrusions, downthrows, flow lines and craters.

To digest all that history and geology you'll probably need to sit down and have a cup of tea, if not something stronger. There are plenty of places to choose from at the bottom of the Royal Mile, or you're heading down from the top of Arthur's Seat it might make more sense to head for the Old Town instead.