Old Town, Edinburgh in pictures.

As I had such a short time in Edinburgh last week, I didn't have time to visit the New Town as well as the Old. The Old Town, as suggested by its name, is the oldest part of Edinburgh and many medieval buildings, as well as the medieval street plan, have been preserved. The Castle is on top of a hill and most of the Old Town flows down from it towards Holyrood (where the Palace and the Scottish Parliament are). There are many steep streets, small alley ways and lots of steps! Buildings appear to have been built on top of each other and there are some that could almost be skyscrapers, built hundreds of years before those in the USA. There is one section of the town that did build on top of, and closed off, a whole section of streets because of plague. Some of these buildings can now be visited. 

If you're interested in more information about the history of Edinburgh, I'd start at the history of Edinburgh pages on Wikipedia.

Now for the pictures. A lot of these pictures are of buildings and bits of buildings that took my fancy and therefore I don't know the names of some of them.

The first pictures are of buildings in Blair Street. Look at those built out windows in  the second picture, there's a roof addition on the same building too.

The next five pictures are of buildings on the Royal Mile or High Street.

The next four pictures are taken from the back of a building on the High Street looking towards Cowgate (a great name isn't it?).

This picture is off the High Street looking towards St. Gile's Cathedral.

The next three photos are of buildings on Cockburn Street. You can't really see from these pictures but it is very steep. I was glad we were walking down rather than up!

Steps on Cockburn Street leading up towards the High Street.

This is the first photo of the Balmoral Hotel. The glass roof is over Waverley rail stations. 

Princes Street Gardens, this used to be, many hundreds+ years ago, a loch (Nor Loch). The railway line runs along the bottom of the depression.

Two views across Princes Street Gardens towards the Castle, the other large stone building is the Scottish National Gallery.

This last one is of the Scott Monument. There'll be more photos of this and other bits of Edinburgh in a future post.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these photos.

TTFN
Louise