Edinburgh and the Lothians Places

Places to Explore

  • Cramond

    At this compact coastal settlement, you can watch summer sunsets upriver of where the Almond joins the Firth of Forth. The river's banks, once the site of mills and industrial works, now have pleasant... (more)

  • Dollar

    This douce (Scots for well-mannered or gentle) and tidy town below the Ochil Hills lies at the mouth of Dollar Glen.... (more)

  • Dunbar

    In the days before tour companies started offering package deals to the Mediterranean, Dunbar was a popular holiday beach resort. Now a bit faded, the town is still lovely for its spacious Georgian-style... (more)

  • Dunfermline

    Dunfermline was once the world center for the production of damask linen, but the town is better known today as the birthplace of millionaire industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)... (more)

  • Haddington

    One of the best-preserved medieval street plans in the country can be explored in Haddington. Among the many buildings of architectural or historical interest is the Town House, designed by William Adam... (more)

  • New Town

    It was not until the Scottish Enlightenment, a civilizing time of expansion in the 1700s, that the city fathers decided to break away from the Royal Mile's rocky slope and create a new Edinburgh below... (more)

  • North Berwick

    The pleasant little seaside resort of North Berwick manages to retain a small-town personality even when it's thronged with city visitors on warm summer Sunday afternoons. Eating ice cream, the city folk... (more)

  • Ochil Hills

    The scarp face of the Ochil Hills looms unmistakably. It's an old fault line that yields up hard volcanic rocks and contrasts with the quantities of softer coal immediately around the River Forth. The... (more)

  • Old Town

    East of Edinburgh Castle, the historic castle esplanade becomes the street known as the Royal Mile, leading from the castle down through Old Town to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The Mile, as it's called... (more)

  • The Pentlands

  • South Queensferry

    This pleasant little waterside community, a former ferry port, is completely dominated by the Forth Bridges, dramatic structures of contrasting architecture that span the Firth of Forth at this historic... (more)