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Photo: 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This holds much of Scotland's fine artwork from Renaissance to 20th century, with changing exhibitions. These rotate seasonally, so an exhibition put on for the Festival typically stays to the end of the year, allowing quieter times to view. Enter from the plaza between gallery and Royal Scottish Academy, and a basement passage connects the two exhibition spaces. The Scottish Galleries on the lowest floor reopened in 2023 after several years of redevelopment, and show a good collection of local work and views which may inspire trips.
The National is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by William Henry Playfair, and first opened to the public in 1859.
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Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) re-invented Scotland. In the late Georgian era, he popularised tales of its medieval and Jacobean tumults, and created the clan tartans you buy on Princes St. This grand Gothic memorial, part cathedral part moon rocket, was completed in 1846 to dominate the east end of Princes St. It's 200 ft 6 in / 61.1 m tall, and guided tours take you up 287 steps (no lift) to the top platform, for a closer look at many of the statuettes of characters from Scott's works. The man himself and his dog sit in state at the base. In the 1990s the curators considered cleaning the monument but realised that the Victorian grime was holding it together, so replacement stonework is prominently white.
The west portion fills the valley beyond the Mound, spanning the railway tracks to the foot of castle crag. The east portion is the terrace around the Scott Monument. They were laid out in the 1820s as private gardens for residents of the street: occupants of bath chairs required a medical certificate that their condition was not contagious. Their initial opening to the public was solely at Christmas and New Year, in the belief that this would distract people from the pubs and reduce drunkenness. In 1876 they became a public park and were re-landscaped and dotted with statues. By this time the gardens were already bisected by railway tracks, the price that had to be paid to finally link the east and west railway terminuses. The gardens are open 24 hours.
Completed in 1890, this is a striking red sandstone neo-Gothic building. It holds portraits of Scots from down the ages, with new faces being added all the time: Billy Connolly and Tilda Swinton mingle with Mary Queen of Scots. The entrance hall has a grand frieze of notable Scots in procession.
A branch of their main museum in Woodbridge Connecticut, this is mostly artwork with exhibitions on the Nakhba and other events.
Atmospheric Georgian graves, memorials, and funerary ornaments. Memorials include those to the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), to the Scots who died in the American Civil War, and to the Martyrs of Reform imprisoned or transported for sedition in the 1790s for calling for the right to vote.
An old red phone box has been kitted out with Edwardian memorabilia, and nicknamed for Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1880-1960) designer of the box. You can look in the windows anytime, or collect the key for £3 (for Save the Children) from Stewart Christie and Co who run a long established gentleman's outfitter in the shop next to it.