Overview

Here’s some news for everyone – Auld Reekie is no more just tartan and scotch or the start point for a host of fourth generation immigrants to chase their ancestry. In the years that people were planning city breaks on European mainland and Hawaii, Edinburgh was quietly sprucing itself up to become one of Britain’s most livable cities. The golf is, of course, as prominent as ever, but now the city also has a bunch of fab nightclubs catering to a wildly multicultural population and tourism has become the new buzzword. The city is abuzz with international festivals and tourists are now looking at Edinburgh as a serious contender to London and Paris for a vacation.

The city’s most charming quality, however, is in the way it blends the ancient with the modern to come up with a historic, cosmopolitan and cultured city that attracts one and all. Perched on extinct volcanoes with the Edinburgh castle dominating the skyline, the city’s superb architecture ranging from ancient churches to monumental Victorian masterpieces is a big draw for travelers looking to discover something exciting. And they get the chills and thrills in the New Town, created when Edinburgh as redesigned in the 1700s, after the Act of Union with Britain. The Princes Street which is the main promenade of the New Town sees a battalion of tourists excitedly wandering the stretch surfing through the offering of brilliantly lit stores and clicking away to capture the elegantly imposing views of the castle that sits brooding like a pained lover.

When it comes to sightseeing, Edinburgh's attractions are largely based on historic stories and legends, from the churchyard where Greyfriar's Bobby, the terrier, refused to leave his master's grave, to the grand royal apartments of Holyrood House, where Mary Queen of Scots watched her husband kill her lover back in the 16th century.

Read on to find out more about Scotland’s captivating capital.

The History of Edinburgh

The most dominating feature of Edinburgh’s city center is the Castle Rock, a volcanic peak with three vertical sides and this easily defensible position is perhaps what attracted the first settlers to the area in about 850 BC. In the next few centuries various tribes from different regions started populating the area. The most notable of these were the two Celtic tribes (Picts and Britons) that occupied Northern Britain during the 4th century, the 6th century Celtic tribe - the Scotti who came in from Northern Ireland and established a kingdom called Dalriada and the 7th century Northumbrian Angles from northeast England who colonized southeast Scotland. The Angles built their fortress on Castle Rock, which they called Edwinesburh. This served as the Scots' southern outpost until 1018 when Malcolm II established a frontier at the River Tweed, despite which English sacked the city no less than seven times.

Edinburgh really began to grow in the 11th century. The growth was driven by the markets that developed at the foot of the fortress, and the fact that David I held court at the castle from 1124 and founded the abbey at Holyrood. This made Edinburgh somewhat the commercial and political center leading to growth of the city. The first effective town wall was constructed around 1450 and circled the Old Town and the area around Grassmarket. This restricted, defensible zone became a medieval colony of skyscrapers forcing its densely packed inhabitants to construct building that went up as high as 12 stories!

What followed was four centuries of growth and development that can be called the golden era of Edinburgh. This was the time that saw the foundation of the College of Surgeons and the introduction of printing. But the period of flourish ended with the death of James IV at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. England's Henry VIII attempted to force a marital alliance marriage between Mary Queen of Scots and his son, but the Scots escaped the sticky situation by sending Mary to France to marry the dauphin. The angered English sacked the city and this was the time when the French came in to support Edinburgh. This was also the time of the Reformation of the Scottish church which, in itself was not a hard task as the Scots were increasingly sympathetic to the ideas of the Reformation, and when John Knox returned from exile in 1555 he found fertile ground for his Calvinist message. In 1560 the Scottish Parliament created a Protestant church independent of Rome, and the pope's authority and Latin mass were rejected.

When James VII succeeded to the combined Scottish and English crowns he moved the court to London and Edinburgh was relegated to the back seat. By this time there was a raging civil war ensuing between Scotland and England and the reason was the same old, same old - religious differences! When Charles I tried to introduce the rule of bishops in 1633 he provoked the National Covenant and more religious turmoil resulted that eventually ended in triumph for the Presbyterians.

Though cultural and intellectual life continued to flourish in Edinburgh, the Act of Union in 1707 further reduced the city's political importance, uniting the two countries under a single parliament. In the second half of the 18th century a new city was created across the ravine to the north – this was called the New Town and is what most tourists take back home as their picture of Edinburgh.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the population was expanding and by the start of the 19th century Edinburgh had quadrupled in size to 400,000. This explosion was in no small way the result of Irish immigrants and refugees who were fleeing the great Potato famine and filling up the old city's tenements. The first few decades of the 19th century was also the time when a new ring of crescents and circuses was built to the south of the New Town, and grey Victorian terraces sprang up.

Following WWII, the city's cultural life blossomed, with the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe first taking place in 1947. The University of Edinburgh established itself as an important teaching center in the fields of medicine, electronics and artificial intelligence and started attracting students from all over. It is this student population that we have to thank today for giving us one of the most happening night life scenes on the island.

The Best time to go to Edinburgh

The climate in Edinburgh is best from May to September, but regardless of the time of year, sunshine and rain go hand in hand. Summer time is the best season to go to Edinburgh as the number of daylight hours are more now than in any other month and you can take advantage of this fact to pack in a lot in one day. The summer evenings are typically long and seem endless but there is enough to do in the city in the evenings that you hardly notice.

Winters are bitterly cold and the sun doesn’t show up much. However, the city is still vibrant with festivals, theater and a lot else going on and you can still visit the city. The main festival period is from August to early September and Hogmanay which is around 1 January and this is the time that requires you to make reservations well ahead of time if you plan to visit then.