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(Edinburgh, UK) Cityroomz Edinburgh. Online Hotel Reservations for 2024. We compare hotels with balconies, views, pools, restaurants & more.
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Discover the best attractions and activities in Edinburgh, from the iconic castle and museums to the stunning views and whisky. Whether you're looking for history, culture, nature or fun, you'll find something to suit your taste in this vibrant city.
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Edinburgh is the capital city and council area of Scotland, with a rich history and culture. Learn about its geography, demography, economy, government, transport, education, healthcare, sport and international relations.
Discover Edinburgh's attractions, events, festivals, neighbourhoods and more with Forever Edinburgh, the official guide to the city. Plan your visit, find accommodation, explore experiences and get inspired by the city's history, culture and beauty.
Things to Do in Edinburgh, Scotland: See Tripadvisor's 1,763,554 traveller reviews and photos of Edinburgh tourist attractions. Find what to do today, this weekend, or in November. We have reviews of the best places to see in Edinburgh. Visit top-rated & must-see attractions.
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Edinburgh, capital city of Scotland, located in southeastern Scotland with its centre near the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, an arm of the North Sea that thrusts westward into the Scottish Lowlands. The city and its immediate surroundings constitute an independent council area. The city and most of the council area, including the busy port of Leith on the Firth of Forth, lie within the historic county of Midlothian, but the council area also includes an area in the northwest, around South Queensferry, in the historic county of West Lothian.
Physically, Edinburgh is a city of sombre theatricality, with much of this quality deriving from its setting among crags and hills and from its tall buildings and spires of dark stone. Edinburgh has been a military stronghold, the capital of an independent country, and a centre of intellectual activity. Although it has repeatedly experienced the vicissitudes of fortune, the city has always renewed itself. Today it is the seat of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive, and it remains a major centre for finance, law, tourism, education, and cultural affairs. Area council area, 102 square miles (264 square km). Pop. (2001) city, 431,393; council area, 476,626; (2011) city, 459,366; council area, 482,640.
Although Edinburgh absorbed surrounding villages and the Firth of Forth ports between 1856 and 1920, its aesthetic and political heart still lies in its small historic core, comprising the Old Town and the New Town. The Old Town, built up in the Middle Ages when the fear of attack was constant, huddles high on the Castle Rock overlooking the surrounding plain. The New Town, in contrast, spreads out in a magnificent succession of streets, crescents, and terraces. The medieval Old Town and the Neoclassical New Town were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995.
“This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop-scene in a theatre,” wrote Robert Louis Stevenson, the 19th-century Scottish novelist, essayist, and poet who was born in the New Town, “but a city in the world of reality.” The contrasts that make Edinburgh unique also make it typically Scottish, for, despite its reserved exterior, it is also a city capable of great warmth and even gaiety. Historically, its citizens have also been capable of great passion, especially in matters royal or religious. In 1561, for example, a mob spurred by the fiery Protestant preacher John Knox tried to break into the private chapel in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, where Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–67), newly returned from France, was attending a Roman Catholic mass. In 1637 a riot in the cathedral of St. Giles in protest against a new service book provoked a Scottish revolt against Charles I and precipitated the War of the Three Kingdoms, which engulfed the whole of Britain in the 1640s and ended in Charles’s execution (see Bishops’ Wars; English Civil Wars). In 1736 the burgh nearly lost its royal charter following the lynching of John Porteous, captain of the city guard. The Porteous riots and lynching were a type of violent gesture common to the history of most old cities. Yet, even in this moment of deranged passion, the city manifested its complex character: needing a hanging rope, the mob descended on a shop and bought one.
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Edinburgh occupies some 7 miles (11 km) of north-facing slope between the Pentland Hills and the broad Firth of Forth estuary, where it merges with the once-independent seaport of Leith. Upthrusts of lava punctuate this slope. One of them, called Arthur’s Seat, the centrepiece of the royal park, has an elevation of 823 feet (251 metres) and dominates the city’s southeastern flank. The valleys between these striking hills were scoured deep and clean by glacial action in the Pleistocene Epoch. Edinburgh has been built on top of and around these obstacles so that the nearer one comes to the city centre, the more spectacular is the juxtaposition of natural and built environment, with terraces of stone confronting soaring thrust.
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At the city’s core is the Old Town’s Castle Rock, a plug of black basalt sealing the vent of an extinct volcano. It stands 250 feet (76 metres) above the valley floor and is crowned by the famous Edinburgh Castle, which, subtly floodlit every night, stirs even the habituated townsfolk. Glacial ice once flowed from the west and around the Castle Rock’s flanks, depositing the accumulated debris of a lateral moraine east of the rock to create a crag and tail formation. Along the crest of this tail, and down its steep sides, the Old Town was built from the 12th century onward.
Aug 16, 2024 · With its grand castle and famous festival, Edinburgh is a tourist magnet. But Scotland’s capital isn’t just a collection of big-ticket sights. Set on a series of extinct volcanoes and blessed with chasm-like medieval alleys and grand civic squares, Edinburgh is a stunner with substance.
Edinburgh is Scotland's capital; a city filled with history, culture, engaging attractions and beautiful architecture. Spend your time exploring its cobbled streets, hidden closes, world-class festivals and lively food and drink scene.
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