🛍️ Royal Mile

The Royal Mile is Edinburgh's most famous street, stretching one Scots mile (about 1.1 English miles) from Edinburgh Castle down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This historic thoroughfare is lined with medieval tenements, hidden closes (alleyways), churches, museums, shops, and pubs. Walking the Royal Mile is a journey through centuries of Scottish history, from Mary Queen of Scots to modern Scottish Parliament. Walking with a local guide unlocks stories that the cobblestones cannot tell on their own. They know which closes sheltered Jacobite conspirators, where bodysnatchers Burke and Hare lured their victims, and how the towering tenements that line the street once packed residents twelve storeys high, making medieval Edinburgh one of the most densely inhabited cities in Europe.