Brian & Sydney
Things To Do
The Royal Mile
From the Castle gates to the Palace gates the street is almost exactly a mile long and runs downhill between two significant locations in the royal history of Scotland, namely Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace, hence its name. The Royal Mile is the busiest tourist street in the Old Town, rivaled only by Princes Street in the New Town.
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is a historic fortress which dominates the skyline of Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland, from its position on the Castle Rock. Archaeologists have established human occupation of the rock since at least the Iron Age (2nd century AD), although the nature of the early settlement is unclear. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century, and the site continued at times to be a royal residence until 1633. As one of the most important strongholds in the Kingdom of Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in many historical conflicts from the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century to the Jacobite rising of 1745. The castle, in the care of Historic Environment Scotland, is Scotland's most and the UK's second most-visited paid tourist attraction, with over 2.1 million visitors in 2018 and over 70 percent of leisure visitors to Edinburgh visiting the castle.