7 Hidden Gems in Edinburgh Most People Walk Right Past
7 landmarks with verified facts and stories
Advocate's Close
High Street, The High Street, Edinburgh, EH1, United Kingdom
Of the ninety-odd closes that survive along the Royal Mile, Advocate's Close offers perhaps the most perfect Edinburgh moment: a narrow medieval lane plunging steeply from the High Street, framing the Scott Monument and the New Town rooftops at its base like a painting.
Cramond Island
Almond, Edinburgh, EH4, United Kingdom
Twice a day, the sea parts and you can walk to an island.
Dean Village
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Five minutes' walk from the West End's Georgian crescents, the ground drops away into a steep wooded gorge and you're standing in a twelfth-century milling village that feels like it belongs in the Cotswolds, not the capital of Scotland.
Edinburgh Vaults
South Bridge, The Grassmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 1LL, United Kingdom
Beneath one of Edinburgh's busiest shopping streets lies a hidden city of approximately 120 rooms that were forgotten for over a century.
Stockbridge
Stockbridge, Edinburgh EH4
This neighbourhood got its name in the most literal way possible: timber planks laid across the Water of Leith as a "stock bridge" for people to cross.
The Real Mary King's Close
2 Warriston's Close, High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1PG
Beneath the Royal Mile, a seventeenth-century street is frozen in time.
The Writers' Museum
Lady Stair's Close, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2PA
Tucked down a narrow close off the Lawnmarket, a seventeenth-century townhouse holds one of literature's strangest collections: a plaster cast of Robert Burns's skull, Sir Walter Scott's rocking horse, and the ring a Samoan chief gave Robert Louis Stevenson.
Explore hidden gems in Edinburgh
GPS-guided narration at every landmark. Tap a spot on the map, hear the story. Every fact verified.