"Edinburgh" a Edinburgh Travel Page by tvor

Edinburg. I've been there a couple of times. The first time was on the bus tour in 1993 and i was enchanted by the old and new city. The history (yes i keep coming back to that) and the old buildings (architecture, my other fascination) are wonderful. The narrow winding streets of the Old Town and the neat elegant Georgian squares and buildings of the new Town. Edinburgh is a lovely city and yes, it can be quite touristy.

In August the city is heaving with people, between the Fringe festival, and the Tattoo, the walls are strained to the limit. Thank heavens for tours because it would be difficult to get accomodations if you don't book far ahead for August. We went to the tattoo on the tour. This takes place on the Castle Esplanade where they construct huge bleachers for seating. It takes over a month to take down the bleachers.

The second time i was in Edinburgh was late September 2000 and they were still removing the rest of the underpinnings for the bleachers. We did Edinburgh on our own and also joined a tour later on a week later and had another tour around again. We explored the Royal Mile and did a bit of shopping on Prince's street . We were actually staying in Glasgow and took a day train over. The tour had us staying at the Jury's which is right off the Royal Mile, excellent location there.

One part of Edinburgh i really haven't seen much of is the area behind the Royal Mile in the old city where the university is. The Grassmarket area has been cleaned up and is popular for pubs and restaurants and there are small winding streets and interesting buildings in this area as well.

At one time, Edinburgh was extremely overpopulated. They had some of the earliest versions of what we would call apartment buildings, with 6 and 8 storeys of rooms which would house many people. The higher up you lived, the poorer you were. Disease was rampant in the close quarters. Eventually, in the 18th century, the government decided they had to expand the city. They devised a way to drain the large North Loch and filled it in. Part of that is now Prince's Gardens, a lovely park below the Castle. The rest was turned into a planned city, wide Georgian streets and houses. When they drained the loch they also discovered the bones of people, mainly women, who were drowned during witch hunts in the 16th century.

Because Edinburgh is a historically important city, there are height restrictions for new construction. Because of this, there is a large shopping center right by the Train station, 2 or 3 levels if i recall. And it's all underground!

The best introduction to the city is to take an open top bus tour. They aren't very expensive and provide free transportation around the city center for the whole day. The circuit covers the Royal Mile, the old town and the new town. Edinburgh is also walkable though a bit hilly in the old part of town. Prepare for inclement weather too, Scotland has wide variations in temperatures and it's a damp climate. There are galleries, shops, museums, monuments and lovely green parks. Edinburgh's face is graceful, genteel and elegant, compared to Glasgow's more "real" working class/student face. I like them both for different reasons. Don't miss one in favour of the other if you can possibly.