Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile and the Old Town Closes

Stretching roughly one Scots mile down a glacial "crag-and-tail" ridge from the volcanic plug of Castle Rock to the foot of Arthur's Seat, the Royal Mile (actually four connected street names: Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street and Canongate) is the historic backbone of Scotland. Because spaces inside the medieval defensive Flodden Wall were cramped, 16th- and 17th-century citizens built skyward, creating ten- and twelve-storey stone tenements ("lands") separated by narrow herringbone alleys known as closes.

Visiting Edinburgh Castle: order and highlights

Book the earliest morning timed slot online and arrive at the Castle Esplanade fifteen minutes before opening. Once across the drawbridge and through the Portcullis Gate, walk straight up to the Crown Square at the summit before queues form at the interior exhibitions:

• The Honours of Scotland and Stone of Destiny: inside the Royal Palace sit the Crown, Sceptre and Sword of State (fashioned in the 15th and 16th centuries, making them the oldest Crown Jewels in the British Isles), alongside the historic Stone of Scone and the tiny wood-panelled birth chamber where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to King James VI in 1566.
• The Great Hall and St Margaret's Chapel: step into the 1511 Great Hall with its original hammerbeam timber roof and weapons display, then visit tiny Norman St Margaret's Chapel (c. 1130), the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, right beside the massive 15th-century siege cannon Mons Meg.
• The Scottish National War Memorial and One O'Clock Gun: at 13:00 (Monday to Saturday), the Master Gunner fires the time signal from the Mills Mount Battery across the Firth of Forth, originally used so ship captains in Leith could set their marine chronometers.

Down the Royal Mile: the best closes, St Giles and Holyrood

As you walk downhill from the Castle, ignore the tartan-and-cashmere mega-shops on the main pavement and duck through the low stone archways on either side:

• Lady Stair's Close and the Writers' Museum: just off the Lawnmarket, a quiet courtyard tower house dedicated to Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson (free entry).
• Advocate's Close and Fleshmarket Close: frame a dramatic narrow slot view straight across the valley to the Scott Monument and New Town.
• St Giles' Cathedral (High Kirk of Edinburgh): crowned by a stone lantern spire shaped like a royal crown, where John Knox preached the Scottish Reformation. Do not miss the early-20th-century Thistle Chapel in the south-east corner, carved in extraordinary miniature oak Gothic detail with bagpipe-playing angels.
• Victoria Street, Grassmarket and Greyfriars: detour one minute south off George IV Bridge down the curving, brightly painted two-tier facade of Victoria Street into the historic Grassmarket pub square, then walk up Candlemaker Row to Greyfriars Kirkyard.
• Canongate, Dunbar's Close and Palace of Holyroodhouse: the lower half of the Royal Mile (the Canongate) is much quieter: step into the hidden 17th-century walled garden of Dunbar's Close and the peaceful churchyard of Canongate Kirk (where economist Adam Smith is buried) before reaching the Scottish Parliament and the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom of the hill. Pair this route with Day 1 of our itinerary.