Things to do

Get seduced by Edinburgh’s charms

Although Edinburgh has a huge bundle of sights that a tourist may want to visit, we are giving you the low down on the top five.

Edinburgh Castle: The Edinburgh Castle dominates the sight seeing list of every tourist and you simply cannot escape the charms of this imposing structure. Sitting atop an extinct volcano, the views from the Castle span the breadth of the city to the Pentland Hills and the Firth of Forth. The castle was originally built as a fortress and served as the seat of kings. Visit the castle for its views of the city, the Scottish Crown Jewels, the Stone of Destiny, tiny St Margaret's Chapel and the Great Hall's magnificent hammerbeam roof. The highlight of the day usually is the terrifying, ear-drum pounding gun fire at one o'clock.

National Gallery of Scotland: The National gallery of Scotland has a rich collection of awe inspiring works by Titian, a Rembrandt self-portrait, luminous Raphaels, a serene Botticelli, a sweep of Impressionists and the eternally delightful 'Skating Minister' by Sir Henry Raeburn.

Royal Botanic Garden: The Royal Botanical Garden is a delightful place to visit and enthralls every one with its sensational collection of 17,000 species of diverse flora from all over the world. A valuable player in the worldwide efforts for ensuring bio-diversity isn’t completely eroded, “the Botanics”, as the locals call the garden, is a wonderful place to be in, especially for ‘Kids with families’! Make sure you visit the glasshouses, which include the world's tallest Palm House built in 1858; the Scottish Heath Garden, the Rock Garden and the Chinese Hillside.

Royal Yacht Britannia: The HMY Britannia was the 83rd Royal Yacht since the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. Moored permanently as an exhibition ship at Ocean Terminal in Leith, it continues to fascinate tourists it s G-Plan furnishings and the Queen's single bed, the cramped crew's quarters and the 1950s operating theatre.

Camera Obscura: Camera Obscura is Edinburgh’s very own custom-built tourist attraction that is a delight for every soul. A periscope on the roof projects a real-time image of the city's comings and goings onto a screen in a darkened room. The place is fun for kids and grown ups as well and you can also have fun with pinhole cameras, holograms, optical illusions and crazy mirrors here.

Shoppers’ Paradise

As with all its other characteristics, the city has successfully blended in the new shopping experience with the old one, too. Edinburgh is a great place to shop with a lot of markets and malls selling everything from traditional Scottish souvenirs and upmarket goods to unique food products. Elsewhere you can put down a few Pounds to buy the latest fashions from cute little boutiques and fab CDs from music shops

The Princes Street is the de facto shopping center of the city where you can find some of the best names in department stores like Debenhams, Frasers, BHS, Marks & Spencer’s. Watch out for the independent department store, Jenner’s on the south side of the street – it takes you back decades and is a quaintly warm experience.

George Street carries forward the chic shopping experience of Princes Street and is flooded with boutiques, bars, restaurants and inns. If you are looking for trendy, chic clothing, this is the place to go to. St Andrew's Square is famous for the Harvey Nichols store and the Multrees Walk which is the Scottish version of London's Bond Street. Multrees walk is home to big ticket fashion labels like Armani, Louis Vuitton and the ubiquitous Mulberry stores. Another fantastic place to shop is Williams Street which has the loveliest range of boutiques and shops likes Helen Bateman's exclusive shoes to the stunning jewelry of Arkangle.

Grassmarket is one of the oldest marketplaces in Edinburgh and is a great bet to find second-hand and antique art, jewelry and books. Good music flows like a wild brook at Cockburn Street with three independent music shops - Avalanche, Underground Solu'shn and the increasingly ubiquitous Fopp.

Royal Mile is ‘the’ place for catching the finest Scottish malt at the Royal Mile Whiskies as well as for tasting some other really tempting brews. The best buy here is a variety of knitwear at the Geoffrey.

A top weekend in Edinburgh

Planning to spend a weekend in Edinburgh? Here is a suggested mode of operation that lets you take in the maximum of the city sights with loads and loads of memories to take back home.

Day 1: Spend your first day in the city experiencing its core - the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's Old Town. The Royal Mile, as the name suggests, runs one Scottish mile from Edinburgh Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Walk out the streets with stops at the historic Gladstone's Land or St. Giles Cathedral and the modern Scottish Parliament building. Explore the narrow alleys and passageways that extend down the hill on either side of the Royal Mile, like ribs from a spine. Also, spend some time at the Grassmarket and the Museum of Scotland.

Day 2: On your second day familiarize yourself with the city's New Town, which dates to the late 1700s. Start out with the Princes Street Gardens before moving on to George Street which is delight with its mishmash of shops and stylish bars. Climb up to Calton Hill at the eastern end of New Town for breathtaking views of the city before ambling about on the Charlotte Square or a walk down to Stockbridge on the Water of Leith. Calf muscles supporting, you can follow a path along the Water of Leith to the Dean Gallery, which is a part of the capital National Galleries of Scotland. Catch the shuttle bus to the National Portrait Gallery or the main National Gallery of Scotland backs in Princes Street Gardens.

Day 3: going to Edinburgh and not saying hello to the sea would be such a shame. So spend your last day at the sea side before stopping for a couple of hours at the marvelous Royal Botanic Garden, where you must go to the Glasshouses for the tallest palms in the world! Move on to Leith which is home to the original port of Edinburgh, once an independent town in its own right. Diehard fans of golf should see Leith Links, one of the sport's historic landmarks or, if you are Royal fancier, go to see the Britannia, the yacht that Queen Elizabeth and family used until 1997. Come back towards central Edinburgh, but detour south to the Meadows and see some of the fine residential neighborhoods of Marchmont or Bruntsfield and get an idea of how Edinburghers live.