For a compact city, Edinburgh packs a big punch. There’s no doubt it’s Scotland’s most handsome city – with the medieval street plan and Reformation-era buildings of the Old Town on one side of Princes Street Gardens, and the neoclassical squares and terraces of the New Town on the other, it was rightly declared a World Heritage Site in 1995.
It’s this dual personality that gives Edinburgh its eternal appeal, and to really understand the city, you simply must experience both sides.
With Waverley train station conveniently placed between the two sides, Edinburgh is relatively easy to explore on foot – though climbing the steep steps that mark the entry to the Old Town to reach the Royal Mile, certainly takes some stamina (taxis are readily available if you’d rather).
The Royal Mile is the name given to the bustling thoroughfare that connects Edinburgh Castle at the top with the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom. It didn’t get its ‘Royal Mile’ moniker until 1901, when author W M Gilbert described it thus in his book, Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, and it’s a Scots mile, which is about 200 yards longer than the English equivalent.
Of course, it wasn’t always a thoroughfare either. Until the 18th century, the Old Town, including the castle, was enclosed by the city walls, which hemmed it in around halfway down the Royal Mile.
Conditions within had grown increasingly cramped, leading to the nickname Auld Reekie (meaning ‘Old Smokey’), first coined in the 17th century, referring to the heavy smog that hung over the city from the open fires in the high tenement buildings.
By the 18th century, living conditions had become so bad in the Old Town that plans were drawn up to create a New Town on the other side of Nor Loch (today Princes Street Gardens).
A relatively unknown architect called James Craig won the bid to design the New Town, and though work began in the 1760s and the area soon became a hotbed of ideas during the Scottish Enlightenment, as Edinburgh’s greatest thinkers and the highest members of society moved in, the project wasn’t completed until the 1820s.
As work progressed, the plan grew more and more ambitious, with new architects employed to extend The New Town. Robert Adam was the creative mind behind stunning Charlotte Square, while William Playfair created both The National Gallery and The Royal Scottish Academy – buildings that incorporate many Greek revival features,
