Edinburgh and the Lothians: Places to Explore

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... Read more

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

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... Read more

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)... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more