City Info

Edinburgh is a historic, cosmopolitan and cultured city. The setting is wonderfully striking; the city is perched on a series of extinct volcanoes and rocky crags which rise from the generally flat landscape of the Lothians, with the sheltered shoreline of the Firth of Forth to the north.

The centre has two distinct parts, divided by Princes Street Gardens, which run roughly east–west under the shadow of Castle Rock. To the north, the dignified, Grecian-style New Town was immaculately laid out during the Age of Reason, after the announcement of a plan to improve conditions in the city. The Old Town, on the other hand, with its tortuous alleys and tightly packed closes, is unrelentingly medieval.