Edinburgh is a compact city, with many of its sights crammed in and around the World Heritage site which is the Old and New Towns. This, along with its characteristic narrow closes and wynds which are inaccessible to vehicles, makes it an ideal place to explore on foot. It isn’t surprising, therefore, that companies offering walking tours have mushroomed in recent years. Some tours are free and some charge, and they over many different themes.
A good introduction to the city is the free tour which leaves from Hunter Square, just off the Royal Mile. Lasting three hours, the tour takes in many of the sites of the Royal Mile and Princes Street, telling the stories of just some of the city’s historical heroes and villains. The tour operates three times daily, at 11am, 1pm and 3pm.
Ghosts, Ghouls and Graveyard Tours
Edinburgh is an ancient place and its history is full of strange happenings and notorious murderers, many of whom met their end hanging from the city’s gallows. Unsurprisingly, any tour operators have capitalised on this and a range of supernatural of criminal-themed tours is on offer.
City of the Dead tours leave from outside St Giles Cathedral and claim the only access to the Covenanters Prison with its associated poltergeist. Not to be outdone, the Auld Reekie tours claim to visit the 'scariest place in the world', the underground vaults of South Bridge - which can also be visited with Mercat Tours.
Evening and night-time tours are popular with visitors to the city’s historic graveyards, such as the Gallows to Graveyard tour also offered by Mercat Tours, while a lighter-hearted look at the darker side of Edinburgh comes from the Cadies and Witchery Tours.
While some of the tours are family-oriented, many are late-night and several compete to offer the scariest possible locations and experience, while others use costumed actors to guarantee some kind of ‘haunting’ and an eventful evening. It’s therefore worth checking whether a particular ghost tour is suitable for children.
Literary Tours of Edinburgh
In 206 Edinburgh was named s UNESCO’s first City of Literature – fittingly so, as its was formerly home to literary giants including Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson along with more current writers such as Ian Rankin, JK Rowling and Alexander McColl Smith. It’s hardly surprising, then, that a number of literary tours are on offer alongside the ghosts and the ghouls.
General literary tours are offered by the Edinburgh Literary Pub Tour, which takes in the haunts of Burns, Stevenson and others, and by Booklovers Tours – also running a pub crawl (summer only) which leaves from outside the Mitre pub, along with a more general tour from outside the Writers’ Museum in Lady Stair’s Close.
Linking literature and crime, Rebus Tours take in many of the locations used in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus novels, often sights familiar from television adaptations – such as the City Mortuary, Sheriff Court and St Leonard’s police station (leaving from the Royal Oak pub). As an alternative the visitor can leave the historic city and head to Leith to see locations from the cult book and film Trainspotting (Leith Walks).
Other Walking Tours of Edinburgh
There is much to cover in the city beyond its graves and its literary giants. Still on the Royal Mile, the Celtic Tour sets out to interpret the rich Christian heritage of the city centre and its historic churches and sites; while Saints and Sinners Tours not only offers a mix of the good and the gory but also more general tours including one covering both Old and New Towns.
Green tourism hasn’t been neglected either. Saints and Sinners also offers tours along the Water of Leith from the city village Stockbridge a mile along the Queensferry Road; while Greenyonder Tours offers regular trips to the hidden gardens of the Royal Mile (leaving from John Knox’s House) regularly during the summer (daily in the Festival) and occasional green-themed tours in the city at other times.
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