Camera Obscura & World of Illusions
Castlehill, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 2ND, United Kingdom
Scotland's oldest purpose-built visitor attraction has been bending light and bending minds since 1835, when entrepreneur Maria Theresa Short set up her optical show on Calton Hill.
National Museum of Scotland
Chambers Street, Portsburgh, Edinburgh, EH1, United Kingdom
Dolly the Sheep stands in a glass case on the first floor, looking remarkably calm for an animal who changed the course of biological science.
Royal Mile
The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
This street isn't actually a mile long — it's a mile and 107 yards, which happens to be exactly one Scots mile, a measurement that hasn't been used since the eighteenth century.
Scottish National Gallery
The Mound, Edinburgh EH2 2EL
William Henry Playfair designed this building in the form of a Greek temple, and Prince Albert laid the foundation stone in 1850.
The Elephant House
21 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EN
This unassuming cafe on George IV Bridge calls itself the "Birthplace of Harry Potter," which is not strictly true — J.
The Writers' Museum
Lady Stair's Close, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2PA
Tucked down a narrow close off the Lawnmarket, a seventeenth-century townhouse holds one of literature's strangest collections: a plaster cast of Robert Burns's skull, Sir Walter Scott's rocking horse, and the ring a Samoan chief gave Robert Louis Stevenson.
Victoria Street
Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2JW
Edinburgh's most photographed street curves downhill from the Royal Mile to the Grassmarket in a rainbow of painted facades that look like they were designed by someone who'd just read a particularly vivid fairy tale.
Explore culture in Edinburgh
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.