The East New Town is the trendy side of the New Town and has been dubbed the East Village by Peter Irvine who writes Scotland The Best. It centres around Broughton Street which has some excellent local shops including Crombie’s the butchers, Real Foods and Villeveuve Wines. There are also some great cafes, restaurants including The Olive Branch and pubs including The Barony Bar. The street has a number of gay friendly bars and restaurants. A Tesco’s supermarket is located nearby. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is located on Queen Street. Its red sandstone exterior was modelled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice and was made possible by a £50,000 gift from JR Findlay, the proprietor of The Scotsman. It is encrusted with statues of famous Scots. In the permanent collection you will find paintings by Van Dyck, Allan Ramsay, Alexander Nasmyth and Henry Raeburn. There are usually several excellent temporary exhibitions and some fascinating lunchtime lectures. The gallery boasts a good shops and a great café and is a happy place to while away an hour or so.
Hillside has become one of Edinburgh’s favourite residential areas. In the first few decades of the 19th century there were major extensions to the original New Town, spreading to the north, west and east, and all in keeping with the neoclassical theme. Perhaps the most interesting of these extensions is the area around Calton Hill, another of Edinburgh’s extinct volcanoes, which grew beyond the east end of Princes Street. The top of Calton Hill are covered with many fine buildings and it is probably these which earned Edinburgh the sobriquet ‘Athens of the North’. It is an easy walk and the views of the city from here are spectacular. It is home to a thriving gay scene at night. The area boasts some fine Georgian architecture with many grand houses on Royal, Carlton and Regent Terraces. The houses on Royal Terrace were built for ship captains who would be able to see their boats coming into the Port of Leith from their top floor windows.
The area is well served by local restaurants including Guiliano’s, Vittorio’s and La Favorita and shops. Leith Walk is developing as a shopping street and Edinburgh’s famous deli and café Valvona and Crolla can be found on Elm Row. The Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre, the new Omni cinema complex which houses bars, restaurants, a cinema, a hotel and comedy club, the private members club The Hallion and John Lewis can all be found within a few minutes walk from each other.
Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town is the largest single area of Georgian architecture in the world. In 1759 work began on draining the Nor’ Loch below the castle, a job which was to take some sixty years and The North Bridge which would link the Old Town with the Port of Leith was built around this time too. In 1766 following a public competition, a plan by a twenty year old architect James Craig was chosen as the basis for the city's New Town. Its grid pattern was perfectly matched to the site: the central George Street, flanked by showpiece squares was laid out along the main ridge, with the parallel Princes Street and Queen Street on either side below. Architects were afforded a wonderful opportunity to play with vistas and spatial relationships, particularly well exploited by Robert Adam who contributed extensively to the project. It may seem like The Mound has always been there but it was formed by around two million cart loads of earth which had been dug up to create the New Town, a pretty useful form of recycling!
This area of Edinburgh forms the main hub of city life today. Princes Street and George Street are the city's main shopping streets and a huge number of restaurants are located here including Vincaffe, Centotre, Dusit Thai, Fishers in the City, Kwelin, Wok and Wine, Café St Honore, Café Marlayne, The Forth Floor at Harvey Nichols, Number One Princes Street. Appetite @ Rowlands on Howe Street does superb take away food. Drinks may be enjoyed at Café Royal Bar, Forth Floor at Harvey Nichols and Oloroso. Great food shops include Delikatasan, Harvey Nichols Food Hall and Jenners Food Hall. Beautiful flowers can be bought at Flowers By Maxwell and stunning clothes at Jane Davidson, Cruise and Belinda Robertson. On a nice day why not take in a stroll through Princes Street Gardens and if comedy is your thing, they usually have a good line up at The Stand Comedy Club. During the festival The Assembly Theatre takes over the Assembly Rooms and presents the finest selection of comedy, theatre, music and dance available in one venue. Acts have included Bill Bailey, Tommy Tiernan, Dara O’Briain, and Steven Berkoff. Jerry Springer the Opera had its debut here too.
The West New Town takes in the area from Howe Street across to Queensferry Street and includes some architectural treasures including Charlotte Square where Robert Adam created one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. Here you will find The Georgian House at No 7 which is run by the National Trust for Scotland and where you can experience life in the eighteenth century. Across the square is the National Trust for Scotland headquarters where they have a good restaurant/café.
Moray Place is also a fine place to take a stroll through and in the evening as most people do not close their curtains it is possible to glimpse a little piece of New Town life as you walk by. You can have a pint and soak up the local atmosphere in Kay’s Bar or a glass of wine in Whigham’s Wine Bar. The Central New Town with its huge range of excellent shops, restaurants and bars is a few minutes walk away.
Over the years, Edinburgh's New Town spread out beyond its original plan to swallow up a series of quaint little villages. One of these, the once bohemian Stockbridge, is the perfect antidote to all that perfect symmetry and neoclassical grandeur. Stockbridge has been home to many artists and writers over the years, among them the painter Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823) Raeburns’ wife Ann is the namesake for Ann Street, one of Edinburgh’s most beautiful streets. 19th-century junkie Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater also lived here. Though Stockbridge has all but lost its rakish charm, it remains one of Edinburgh's most beguiling corners and is an interesting place to explore.
There are number of excellent food shops here including George Bower, Herbie and Armstrongs. Restaurants include Bell’s Diner and Bert’s Bar is a good place to have a pint. The Royal Botanic Gardens are also located nearby on Arboretum Place and is a lovely place to while away a few quiet hours. It is also possible to gain access from Stockbridge to the Water of Leith which has a paved footpath running along side it and is a lovely place to go for a walk or indeed run. It is possible to gain access to the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art via steps from here. Fettes School is also located in Stockbridge, with several famous ex pupils including Tony Blair and James Bond! Sean Connery surely the best ever Bond spent time as a milk man on Stockbridge’s Ann Street
With its proximity to the city centre, the West End is now mostly used for offices, with a decent clutch of bars and restaurants, and there is elegant terraced housing towards its outer edges. Here, enjoying some green space and a dignified setting are two compelling collections of contemporary art, the well-established Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art which houses a magnificent permanent collection of great Scottish artists including SJ Peploe, F Cadell and Charles Rennie Mackintosh as well as works by Picasso, Francis Bacon etc. There’s an extremely popular café here with a garden to sit in during the summer. Due to its popularity there can be very long queues to get your food. Across the road is, the Dean Gallery which boasts amongst its permanent collection one of the finest collections of Dada and Surrealist art in the world. It also has a recreation of the studio of the Leith-born sculptor Sir Eduardo Paolozzi.
The West End is not particularly well placed for local shops, but William Street is one of Edinburgh’s best boutique shopping streets and includes the wonderful boutique clothes shop Arkangel. The Oddbins branch has a great fine wine section.
Further out, Edinburgh's Zoo, a popular family attraction, is located on one of the city's prominent rises, Corstorphine Hill.
Edinburgh's Old Town is the dark soul of the city – the Mr Hyde to the New Town's Dr Jekyll. This medieval Manhattan of high-rise tenements is inhabited by some ghosts of the city's seamy past: Burke and Hare, Deacon Brodie and "Bloody" Mackenzie are only some of the nefarious characters to have stained the pages of Edinburgh's history. Running down its spine is the Royal Mile, from the Castle, perched high on its rock, to the Palace of Holyrood House. The 1,984 regal yards comprise four separate streets: Castlehill, Lawn- market, the High Street and the Canongate. Along its route is a succession of tourist attractions from the magnificent Edinburgh Castle past the fascinating Camera Obscura, the spooky Mary Kings Close to the Queen’s official residence in Edinburgh The Palace of Holyrood House. Opposite is the new Scottish Parliament building, which divides people between those who hate it or love it. Down the Royal Mile you will also pass many bars, restaurants, cafés and shops selling everything from kilts, to Christmas baubles to Havana cigars.
Restaurants include Petit Paris, Black Bo’s and The Witchery. Drinks can be had at Bar Kohl and for Scotch whisky fans Cadenheads Whisky Shop has a superb selection. In the evening The Liquid Rooms is one of Edinburgh hottest club venues and Whistle Binkies is a good place to hear some live music.
This is the focus of the city's tourist activity, especially during the Festival when it becomes a mêlée of street performers, enthralled onlookers and al fresco diners and drinkers. It's easy to escape the hordes, however. South of the Royal Mile is a rabbit warren of narrow alleys and closes which are fascinating to explore.
This part of Edinburgh centres around The University of Edinburgh. During the fringe The Gilded Balloon take over another university building Teviot. Their Late Night Live show is the stuff of comedy legend and Karen Koren has over the years kick started the careers of many fine comedians the latest being the 2005 Perrier Newcomer winner Tim Minchin. Nearby George Square is a pleasant place to sit and eat a sandwich on a sunny day and during the fringe it is taken over by the extremely popular Spiegeltent where open air relaxed drinking continues into the wee hours. They have a superb range of music and burlesque shows including La Clique. This is a bustling part of Edinburgh containing great restaurants such as Original Khushi’s, Saffrani, Suruchi, Kalpna, Susie’s Diner, Home Bistro and Kebab Mehal. There is a great selection of bars including Sandy Bells. It is possible to fascinate yourself for hours in the Museum of Scotland .
This area stretches from the West End of Princes Street up Lothian Road taking in The Royal Lyceum Theatre, The Usher Hall, The Filmhouse, The Cameo and The King’s Theatre and reaches up to the start of the Meadows. In recent years it has seen the building of some of Edinburgh’s smartest new office buildings and the Conference Centre is located here too. There are some great restaurants in this area including Rainbow Arch, Blue and Ndebele. You can shop for chillies at Lupe Pinto and buy a fabulous flower creation from Kate Howells at Stems. Close by are a variety of local amenities, cafes, bars and restaurants. The areas of Bruntsfield, Old Town and Central are all easily accessible from here on foot.
Bruntsfield and Marchmont are lovely residential areas only 15 minute walk from Princes Street. The Meadows separate it from central Edinburgh and are a fantastic place to sit and watch the world go by on a sunny day. Next door to The Meadows is Bruntsfield Links and it is here that the Scottish army gathered before setting out on the campaign that was to end so disastrously at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The Links are also Edinburgh’s oldest golf course. The pitch and put course is popular and free.
From the time it was built it has been closely associated with the student community and most of the properties in this area are occupied by students. Argyll Street provides some of the best food shopping in Edinburgh with the Greengrocers and Organic Shop and Eddie’s Seafood Market. The lovely Monica Higgins has a beautiful flower shop here and it is possible to eat a delicious meal in the very popular Sweet Melinda’s just around the corner. Thai Lemongrass is located here too and a great Chinese take away can be ordered from GY’s.
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