The Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Castle Esplanade → Lawnmarket

• The Castle Esplanade — the flat parade ground where the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is staged every August. It's also the best free view back over the New Town. The Castle gate is your starting line.
• The Scotch Whisky Experience & Camera Obscura — a whisky "barrel ride" tasting tour and the city's oldest visitor attraction, a Victorian rooftop optical theater with one of the best Old Town panoramas.
• The Hub (Tolbooth Kirk) — that soaring black Gothic spire is the highest point in central Edinburgh. Now an events venue and café; once the meeting hall of the Church of Scotland.

Where the closes begin

• Gladstone's Land — a beautifully preserved 17th-century merchant's tenement run by the National Trust; step inside for a sense of how cramped and tall Old Town living really was.
• The Writers' Museum (free · hidden) — tucked down Lady Stair's Close, devoted to Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. The courtyard's Makars' Court is paved with quotations.
• Deacon Brodie's Tavern — named for the respectable cabinet-maker who burgled houses by night, the real-life inspiration for Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde.
• The closes — this is where to duck off the main street. Riddle's Court and the steep wynds reveal the layered, vertical Old Town that the crowds on the Mile never see.

The civic and spiritual heart

• St Giles' Cathedral (don't miss) — the High Kirk of Edinburgh, crowned by its unmistakable stone crown spire. Inside, the jewel-box Thistle Chapel has some of the finest carved oak and stained glass in Scotland. Entry is free; a small fee for photography.
• The Heart of Midlothian — a heart-shaped mosaic set in the cobbles marks the site of the old Tolbooth prison. Locals still spit on it for luck — go on.
• Mercat Cross & the City Chambers — the historic spot for royal proclamations. Beneath the Chambers lies The Real Mary King's Close, a warren of genuine 17th-century streets sealed underground — one of the Mile's most popular paid tours.
• John Knox House — the oldest surviving medieval house on the Mile, linked to the firebrand leader of the Scottish Reformation, with the Scottish Storytelling Centre alongside.
• Museum of Childhood & The Tron Kirk — a free, charmingly odd museum of toys, opposite the former parish church that now marks the crossing of North and South Bridge.

The quieter, older lower town

• Once a separate burgh outside the city walls, the Canongate is calmer, wider and far less crowded than the top of the Mile — many visitors turn back before reaching it, which is exactly why it's worth continuing.
• Canongate Kirk — the parish church of the Palace, with a graveyard holding economist Adam Smith and the poet Robert Fergusson.
• The People's Story & Museum of Edinburgh (both free) — social-history museums facing each other across the street, in the old Canongate Tolbooth and Huntly House.
• Dunbar's Close Garden — a hidden 17th-century-style walled garden down an easy-to-miss close; the Mile's best free pocket of quiet.

Abbey Strand → the Palace gates

• The Scottish Parliament — Enric Miralles' bold, divisive modern building closes the bottom of the Mile, a deliberate contrast to everything above it. Free to visit.
• The Palace of Holyroodhouse (royal residence) — the King's official residence in Scotland, home to Mary Queen of Scots' chambers and the ruined 12th-century Holyrood Abbey. A worthy paid finale — and the other half of the royal day. See our Holyrood Palace guide →
• Holyrood Park & Arthur's Seat — beyond the gates rises the extinct volcano. If your legs have anything left, the climb gives the finest view in the city.