EDINBURGH · SCOTLAND
The castle, the closes, and the road north.
Castle ramparts and underground vaults, ghost walks and whisky bars, the Royal Mile and the festival summer. Plus the big days out: Loch Ness, Skye, Stirling and the Highlands.
Only here
Three things that only happen here.
Castles and cathedrals turn up across Europe. A whole street buried under the city, a mile of closes from a clifftop fort to a working palace, and the place that dreamed up Hogwarts belong to Edinburgh alone.
The buried city
The Streets Beneath the Street
When the Old Town outgrew itself, Edinburgh built over its own lanes and bricked up the South Bridge vaults. Whole closes were sealed beneath the City Chambers. Guides take you down into Mary King’s Close and the vaults, the cold rooms where the city kept its plague years and its ghost stories.
- 1 Edinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour
- 2 Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town
- 3 Edinburgh: Haunted Underground Vaults and Graveyard Tour
Castle to palace
The Mile That Runs the Ridge
One street follows the spine of the Old Town, from the castle on its dead volcano down to the Queen’s palace at Holyrood. The Royal Mile is a mile of kirks, courts, closes and tenements stacked ten storeys deep, the best walk in Britain for anyone who likes their history within arm’s reach.
- 1 Edinburgh: Harry Potter Magical Guided Walking Tour
- 2 Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
- 3 Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town
Where it was written
The City That Made Hogwarts
J.K. Rowling wrote the first books in Edinburgh cafes, and the city is all over the page: the cobbles of Victoria Street, the spires seen from the castle, the names on the gravestones of Greyfriars Kirkyard. The walking tours join the dots between the real city and the one on the shelf.
- 1 Edinburgh: Harry Potter Magical Guided Walking Tour
- 2 Original Harry Potter Locations Tour in Edinburgh : Guided Tour
- 3 The Potter Trail Private Tour
The Royal Mile
Walk the mile, end to end.
One street, a castle at the top and a palace at the foot, with a thousand years of the city stacked in between. Six stops from the esplanade down to Holyrood.
Start here
If you do one thing, do this.
The single most popular experience in Edinburgh, and an easy first booking before you fill in the rest of the trip.
The classics
Edinburgh’s Most Popular Tours
The castle, the ghosts, a whisky tasting and the big day north to Loch Ness. The trips most travellers book first.
Where to begin
The places and days a trip is built around.
The castle and the ghosts, a dram of whisky, the islands and the run up to Loch Ness. The handful most Edinburgh trips are planned around, and the pick of each.
The big day out
See the Highlands in a day.
The mountains start two hours north of the Royal Mile. Three ways to reach them from Edinburgh, depending on how long you have and how far you want to go.
The water of life
A dram, and the story behind it.
Scotland makes the world’s whisky, and Edinburgh is where you learn to read it. Tastings under the castle walk you from the soft Lowland malts to the peat-smoke of Islay, with the blends, the casks and the history poured alongside.
Read the guide: the best whisky tours →After dark
The most haunted city in Europe.
Edinburgh earned the title the hard way: plague-sealed closes, the bodysnatchers Burke and Hare, witch trials on the castle esplanade and a kirkyard with a poltergeist of its own. After the light goes, the tours head into the closes, the graveyards and the vaults under the bridges.
See the ghost & haunted tours →The wild middle
A volcano in the middle of the city.
Arthur’s Seat rises 250 metres straight out of Holyrood Park, a long-dead volcano you can climb in an afternoon for the best view in Edinburgh. Below it the Salisbury Crags break like a stone wave above the rooftops, ten minutes from the foot of the Royal Mile.
Walking tours & city walks →Out on the water
Under the great red bridge.
Half an hour from the centre, three bridges cross the Firth of Forth, the 1890 rail bridge among the most famous in the world. Boats run out under it to Inchcolm and its island abbey, past grey seals, puffins and the gulls of the estuary.
See all 9 Forth cruises →Outlander
Step through the stones.
The show was filmed up and down the country an hour or two from the city: Midhope Castle as Lallybroch, Doune as Castle Leoch, the Highlands as the world Claire steps into. Guided trips run out to the real locations, with the history the show was hung on.
- 1 From Edinburgh: The Outlander Experience Guided Tour
- 2 Outlander Film Locations Day Trip from Edinburgh
- 3 From Edinburgh: “Outlander” Filming Locations Explorer Tour
By place
The city, and the country beyond.
The Old Town for the closes and the castle. Loch Ness and Skye for the Highlands. Stirling for the castles. St Andrews for the golf. The Borders for the abbeys and the Roman wall.
By type
Or pick how to spend the day.
On foot through the Old Town. Underground into the vaults. A whisky flight, a ghost walk after dark, a hop-on bus, or the whole story with a guide.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Edinburgh? A long weekend that takes in the city, a day in the Highlands, and the stories after dark.
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