Edinburgh

Why go

The largest arts festival on earth — three thousand shows a day in August, most of them uninvited. A city on a volcano — the castle sits on a plug of basalt and the Old Town runs down its glacial tail. Two cities in one — a medieval tangle and a Georgian grid, separated by a drained loch. The Enlightenment happened here — Hume, Smith and Black within a few streets of each other.

The character

Edinburgh's shape is glacial. A volcanic plug resisted the ice, which scoured around it and left a long tail of debris behind — the castle stands on the rock and the Royal Mile runs down the tail, with steep closes dropping either side. In the 1760s the city drained the loch below and built the New Town on a grid, so the medieval and the Georgian sit side by side, separated by gardens and a railway.

The festival is an accident that became the identity. The International Festival was founded in 1947 to rebuild European cultural life after the war; eight companies turned up uninvited, performed on the fringe of it, and the Fringe has grown into the largest arts festival in the world — around three and a half thousand shows a day, anyone can register, nobody curates. For three weeks in August the population roughly doubles and every church hall, cellar and cupboard becomes a venue. The rest of the year Edinburgh is a stone-grey, wind-blown, bookish capital of half a million with too much history in walking distance.

Places of character

Arthur's Seat — an extinct volcano in a public park; forty-five minutes up for the whole city and the Forth. The closes off the Royal Mile — Advocate's, Riddle's, Mary King's, each a vertical medieval street. Scottish National Gallery — small, free, and with the Titians, Velázquez and Raeburns of a serious collection. Dean Village and the Water of Leith — a mill hamlet in a gorge ten minutes from Princes Street. Scottish Parliament — Miralles's 2004 building, argued about ever since and worth forming a view on. Oxford Bar or Sandy Bell's — the drinking city, unreconstructed, with folk music at the second.

The way to do it

Decide about August: the Fringe is genuinely extraordinary and the city is impossible — accommodation triples and the Royal Mile becomes a flyering scrum. Outside it, go in September or February. Climb Arthur's Seat on the first morning. And walk the closes rather than the Mile; the vertical city is where the interest is.

One perfect day

Up Arthur's Seat before eight with the city under haar and the Forth beyond it. Breakfast, then the closes off the Royal Mile down to Holyrood and the Parliament building. Late morning at the National Gallery — an hour is enough and it is free. Lunch in the New Town. Afternoon walk down to Dean Village and along the Water of Leith to Stockbridge, which is the walk nobody tells you about. Back up for whisky in an unreconstructed bar, dinner, and — in August — three shows in a row, ending in a cellar at midnight with fifteen people and a comedian who will be famous in four years.

Grand hotels

The Balmoral — 1902 railway hotel at the east end of Princes Street, with the clock deliberately three minutes fast. Prestonfield House — a 1687 mansion under Arthur's Seat with peacocks and no daylight in the dining room.

When to go

Best expression: August for the Festival and Fringe, if the chaos is the reason. Consider: September, immediately after — the weather holds, the city exhales and rooms are affordable. Avoid if possible: August without a booking, and the New Year Hogmanay street party unless that is the plan.

The frame

Ideal stay 3 nights · Minimum 2 nights · Best arrival train from London, 4h20 · Airport EDI, 13 km with a tram · Walkability excellent, steep, and windier than expected · Best without a car yes