There are a plethora of walking tours on offer in Edinburgh, with good reason: it’s a highly walkable city, bursting with history, architecture, and monuments all within a relatively compact city center. In the months since we’ve moved here, we’ve walked all over the place, but always in the disorganized manner of those who are not on a walking tour. It was time to change that.
The other day we signed up for the Secrets of the Royal Mile tour, hoping that we’d learn some new fun facts about Edinburgh’s well-trodden main tourist street (and backbone of the medieval Old Town). The tour starts at the mercat cross next to St. Giles (which is not a cathedral, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!), and basically stays within a couple blocks of this area for the entire 1.5 hours.
As I was hoping it would, the tour drew our attention to several buildings, monuments, closes, and other details that we had never quite noticed before. Our guide William happily told us story after story about the history of Edinburgh as it related to these little bits of the Old Town. We heard about public hangings, a peeing statue, and the man who was the inspiration for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
We ducked into a couple different closes, the narrow, steeply-sloping alleyways that you’ll find off either side of the Royal Mile (one of my favorite features of the Old Town).
Overall we really enjoyed the tour and learned a bunch of new stuff about the Royal Mile, information with which we can dazzle future visitors.
Who should go? We’d recommend the Secrets of the Royal Mile tour to anyone who enjoys learning about history through colorful stories and fun facts.
Who should skip it? People who are not all that interested in Edinburgh’s history; people who are so interested in Edinburgh’s history that they already know all there is to know about it. Also to note: during the Festival (August) the route for this tour is likely to be quite crowded, so it might not be a good choice for those who don’t like crowds.
