Edinburgh

Things to do in Edinburgh

Here are the twelve we would send a friend to on a first visit, roughly in the order you would walk them: the castle and the ridge first, then the hills, then out to the water. Prices and hours were checked on the operators' own sites in August 2026; they change every spring, so treat them as a guide.

1. Edinburgh Castle

Start at the top. The castle has been a fortress, a palace and a prison, and it holds the Honours of Scotland (the oldest crown jewels in Britain), the Stone of Destiny's old home, St Margaret's Chapel from about 1130 and the one o'clock gun, which goes off every day except Sunday and makes everyone on Princes Street jump. Allow two to three hours. The single most useful thing to know is that it sells out: in summer, tickets for the day can be gone a week or more ahead, and once they are gone online there are none at the gate. Book the moment you know your dates. Our history of Edinburgh Castle tells the story before you go.

Practical: Open from 9.30am daily; closes 6pm from April to September and 5pm from October to March, with last entry an hour before. £23.50 adult, £14 child (7 to 15), £19 concession, £67.50 for two adults and two children, all online; walk-up tickets, when there are any, cost £26, £15.50, £21 and £74.50. Historic Environment Scotland members go free but still have to book a slot online. No car park; walk up from the Royal Mile. Checked August 2026.

2. The Royal Mile and the closes

The mile of street from the castle down to Holyrood is really four streets (Castlehill, the Lawnmarket, the High Street and the Canongate) and the point is not the shops but the closes, the narrow alleys that drop away on either side to courtyards, stairs and sudden views. Push into a few. St Giles' Cathedral is free and worth twenty minutes for the Thistle Chapel; the Museum of Edinburgh and the Writers' Museum are free; and the Real Mary King's Close takes you under the street into the 17th-century houses the City Chambers were built on top of. If you want the stories told properly, Heritage Guides run walking tours from the Mile.

3. Arthur's Seat and Holyrood Park

The hill in the middle of the city is an extinct volcano, 251 metres high, and the walk from the palace gates to the top and back takes most people about two hours. The Radical Road under the Salisbury Crags has been closed since 2018 because of rockfalls, so go up from the palace end by the main path, or by the gentler one from Dunsapie Loch; wear proper shoes because the top is rocky and the wind is real, and go early or late in summer. The view takes in the whole city, the Forth bridges and the Pentlands, and it is free.

Practical: Holyrood Park is open all the time and costs nothing. The park roads are closed to cars at weekends and the High Road and Duddingston car park only open on Tuesday to Thursday from 9.30am to 3pm, so plan to walk in. Checked August 2026.

4. National Museum of Scotland

The best free afternoon in Scotland, and the best wet one. The Grand Gallery is a Victorian cast-iron hall of light, the Scottish galleries take you from the Lewis chessmen to Dolly the sheep, and the roof terrace on the seventh floor gives you a castle view most visitors never find. Children get the science and natural history floors, which are built for touching. Allow two hours, and go to the roof first if the weather is about to turn.

Practical: Chambers Street, five minutes from the Royal Mile. Free entry, with a charge for some special exhibitions. Open 10am to 5pm daily. Checked August 2026.

5. Palace of Holyroodhouse

The King's official residence in Scotland, at the bottom of the Royal Mile, and still used, so it closes for royal visits (the week around the end of June and early July is the usual one; check before you go). Mary, Queen of Scots' rooms are the reason to visit, with the spot where her secretary Rizzio was murdered in 1566, and the ruined abbey and the gardens with Arthur's Seat behind them are the reward for the ticket. Ninety minutes is enough.

Practical: £22 adult and £11 child (5 to 17) booked in advance, £26 and £13 on the day; under-5s free. Open through the year apart from royal closures. A combined ticket with the King's Gallery next door is £29.70. Checked August 2026.

6. Calton Hill

The other hill, and the easier one: ten minutes up the steps from the east end of Princes Street to the unfinished National Monument (the columns that look like a Greek ruin, because the money ran out in 1829), the Nelson Monument and the view down the Royal Mile to the castle with Arthur's Seat to your left. It is free, it is the best sunset in the city, and the Collective gallery in the old observatory is free too.

7. Dean Village and the Water of Leith

Ten minutes' walk from the west end of Princes Street, the land drops into a wooded gorge and you are in a village of 19th-century mill buildings that most visitors never see. Follow the Water of Leith walkway downstream from Dean Village past the Gallery of Modern Art (free) and St Bernard's Well to Stockbridge, which has the cafés, the delis and a Sunday market, and then on through the Botanics to Leith if your legs are up to it. Flat, free and the quietest hour in the city.

8. Leith and the Royal Yacht Britannia

Leith is the port, twenty minutes from the centre by bus or tram, with the best concentration of restaurants in the city along the Shore and the Royal Yacht Britannia moored at Ocean Terminal. The yacht is the surprise of Edinburgh: the Queen's floating home for more than forty years, with the state rooms, the crew's quarters and the royal bedrooms all kept as they were, and a tea room on the deck. Allow two hours, and eat in Leith afterwards.

Practical: Ocean Terminal, Leith; buses 10, 16 and 34 from the centre, or the tram to Ocean Terminal, with free parking in the multi-storey. Open 9.30am to 6pm from April to October (last entry 4pm) and 10am to 5pm from November to March (last entry 3pm). £23 adult and £11.50 child (7 to 15) online, £25 and £12.50 at the door, under-7s free; children go free from 25 June to 1 September 2026. Checked August 2026.

9. Royal Botanic Garden

Seventy acres of garden a mile north of the centre, free to walk into, with the rock garden, the Chinese hillside, the arboretum and a café with a view back to the castle skyline. The Victorian Palm Houses have been closed for restoration for several years and reopen on 2 October 2026, so if you are coming after that, book a glasshouse slot. Walk there along the Water of Leith from Stockbridge; it is the end of the route in item 7.

Practical: Garden entry is free; the glasshouses are ticketed. Opening hours change with the season, so check the Botanics' site for the day. Our listing for the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens has the details. Checked August 2026.

10. Camera Obscura and the Scotch Whisky Experience

The two attractions at the very top of the Royal Mile, side by side on Castlehill, and the answer to a wet afternoon or a family with different ideas. Camera Obscura and World of Illusions is six floors of optical tricks, a mirror maze and a vortex tunnel, with the Victorian camera itself on the roof throwing a live picture of the city onto a table; children adore it and it opens late. Next door, the Scotch Whisky Experience is the introduction to whisky for people who have never had one, with a barrel ride, a tasting and the largest whisky collection in the world behind glass.

Practical: Camera Obscura is £24.95 adult and £17.95 child (5 to 15), with under-5s free, and it opens at 9am every day and closes between 8pm and 10pm depending on the season; until 1 September 2026 the summer prices are £21.85 and £15.70. The Scotch Whisky Experience's Silver tour is £25 for 50 minutes with one dram and the Gold tour is £39.75 for 75 minutes with five; both need booking and photo ID. Checked August 2026.

11. Greyfriars Kirkyard and the Grassmarket

Greyfriars is the graveyard at the top of Candlemaker Row where the Covenanters were imprisoned in 1679, where the little dog Bobby is said to have kept watch over his master's grave for fourteen years, and where J K Rowling found a fair few of her characters' surnames on the headstones. It is free and open all the time. Below it, the Grassmarket is the old market square under the castle rock, all pubs and outdoor tables, and Victoria Street curving up from it is the most photographed street in the city.

12. Portobello beach

When the sun comes out, Edinburgh goes to Portobello: two miles of sand and a Victorian promenade twenty minutes east of the centre by bus, with cafés, a Turkish baths from 1901 you can still swim in, and a sea that locals swim in all year and visitors mostly paddle in. Take the number 26 from Princes Street. If you want the proper seaside, North Berwick is thirty minutes by train and has the Bass Rock, the harbour, the best beach on the coast and Wild Cairns for children who need to run.

Where to eat

Edinburgh has a lot of restaurants and the Old Town has most of the tourist ones, so choose with care. On the Royal Mile itself, Angels with Bagpipes does modern Scottish cooking in a 17th-century building opposite St Giles', and The Black Grape is the wine bar with small plates for an evening that starts with a drink. Dishoom on St Andrew Square is the Bombay café everyone queues for, and worth it for the bacon naan at breakfast when there is no queue. Canopy Kitchen and Courtyard is the quiet courtyard for brunch away from the crowds, and Hard Rock Cafe on George Street is the reliable answer with children. For the best of the rest, go to Leith and walk the Shore. See all places to eat in Edinburgh.

Getting there and around

You do not want a car in Edinburgh. Parking is scarce and expensive, the centre is small enough to walk, and the buses and the tram go everywhere else. Fly into Edinburgh Airport and take the tram (about 35 minutes to Princes Street, every seven minutes, £7.90 single or £9.50 open return, children £4 and £5) or the Airlink 100 bus; arrive by train at Waverley, which puts you at the foot of the Old Town, or at Haymarket for the West End. If you are driving in from the Highlands, use a park and ride (Ingliston by the airport is on the tram line) and leave the car there.

Train times are the fastest scheduled services on ScotRail and LNER in August 2026; drive times are for normal traffic. Check for the day you travel.

Inside the city, Lothian Buses run everything and a day ticket is the best value; the tram links the airport, the centre and Leith. Most of what is on this page is within a thirty-minute walk of Waverley, and the hills are the only part that will make you breathe hard.

When to visit

May, June and September are the months we would choose: long light, full opening hours, and a city that is busy but not full. August is a different place. The Fringe, the International Festival and the Tattoo run through the month, the population doubles, the castle and the good restaurants sell out and prices climb with them; if you are coming for the festivals, read our Edinburgh Fringe guide and book in the spring, and if you are not, come in another month. Winter has its own case: the Christmas market fills East Princes Street Gardens from late November, Hogmanay is one of the biggest street parties in Europe, and the museum and the castle are quiet on a wet January afternoon. The wind off the Forth is the thing nobody warns you about; bring a layer you did not think you would need.

Day trips and nearby

The train does most of the work. North Berwick and East Lothian, thirty minutes east, have the beaches, the Bass Rock gannets, the Scottish Seabird Centre and Tantallon Castle; Stirling is fifty minutes for the castle, the Wallace Monument and Bannockburn; Glasgow is fifty minutes for the museums and a completely different city. Rosslyn Chapel is half an hour south by bus for the carvings and the Da Vinci Code crowd, and the Pentland Hills behind it are the locals' walking country. With a car, Loch Lomond is ninety minutes, Perth and Perthshire an hour, and Fife across the bridges has St Andrews and the East Neuk fishing villages. In autumn, the pumpkin farms and golf stays of East Lothian are both within forty minutes, and the Scottish Borders are an hour south, or 55 minutes by train to Tweedbank.