Edinburgh

Dominating the dramatic skyline, Edinburgh Castle watches over Scotland's capital city, frowning down on Princes Street, now the main downtown shopping area. The Castle, the symbolic heart of the country, was actually built over the plug of an ancient volcano. Many thousands of years ago, an eastward-grinding glacier encountered the tough basalt core of the volcano and swept around it, scouring steep cliffs and leaving a trail of matter, like the tail of a comet. This material formed a ramp gently leading down from the rocky summit. On this crag and tail -- now the setting for the city castle -- would grow Edinburgh.

By the 12th century Edinburgh had become a walled town, still perched on the hill. Its shape was becoming clearer: like a fish with its head at the castle, its backbone running down the ridge, and its ribs leading briefly off on either side. The backbone gradually became the continuous thoroughfare now known as the Royal Mile, and the ribs became the closes (alleyways), some still surviving, that were the scene of many historic incidents.

Large gardens and greenery are prevalent features of central Edinburgh, where the council is one of the most stridently conservationist in Europe. Conspicuous from Princes Street is Arthur's Seat, a mountain of bright green and yellow furze rearing up behind the spires of the Old Town. This child-size (800-ft) mountain has steep slopes and little crags, like a miniature Highlands set down in the middle of the busy city.

Nearly everywhere in Edinburgh (the burgh is always pronounced burra in Scots) there are spectacular buildings, whose Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian pillars add neoclassical grandeur to the surroundings. The most notable examples are perched amid the greenery of Calton Hill, which overlooks the city center from the east.