The Scottish crown jewels were hidden in this castle for over a century because everyone simply forgot they existed. After the 1707 union with England, the Honours of Scotland were locked in a chest and sealed in a room, untouched for 111 years until Walter Scott rediscovered them in 1818. Edinburgh Castle has been besieged 26 times — more than any other place in Britain. Perched on an extinct volcano, its oldest building, St Margaret’s Chapel, has survived since the 12th century, making it the oldest surviving building in the city.
Audio guide Edinburgh
Tella is a free audio guide for any place on Earth. Here are 30 places in Edinburgh worth a story. Open one on the map and hear it read aloud in English, or take the Android app on a walk and let it narrate whatever you pass.
Places worth a story
University of Edinburgh
public university in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Holyrood Palace
official residence of the British monarch in Scotland
Mary, Queen of Scots, watched her private secretary get dragged into her supper room and stabbed fifty-six times while she held him back. The murder of David Rizzio inside Holyrood Palace in 1566 is one of the bloodiest moments in Scottish royal history. Her jealous husband, Lord Darnley, helped the killers reach the queen's chambers by a narrow spiral staircase. The bloodstain on the floor outside her room was still pointed out to visitors for centuries. Today the palace still opens Mary's apartments to the public, and her rooms look much as they did that night. Holyrood remains the monarch's official home in Scotland, with King Charles staying for a week each summer.
Photo: 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0
National Museum of Scotland
combined museum in Edinburgh
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Maccoinnich~commonswiki assumed (based on… · CC BY-SA 3.0
St Giles' Cathedral
Church of Scotland cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
The Scottish Reformation is often said to begin with a stool. In 1637, at St Giles' Cathedral, a market trader named Jenny Geddes hurled her folding stool at the minister as he read from a new prayer book imposed by Charles I. The riot that followed spread across Scotland and helped ignite the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. John Knox, the firebrand of the Reformation, had preached here decades earlier. The Thistle Chapel, built in 1911, holds the stalls of the sixteen knights of Scotland's oldest order.
Edinburgh Waverley railway station
main railway station in the Scottish capital Edinburgh
Photo: 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Holyrood Abbey
monastery ruins in Holyrood, City of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Edinburgh Napier University
university in Scotland
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Botanical garden in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Photo: Ham · CC BY-SA 3.0
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
art museum in Edinburgh, Scotland
Water of Leith
river in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, flows into the Firth of Forth
Photo: 瑞丽江的河水 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Craigmillar Castle
castle in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Photo: Photograph by Stuart Yeates , from en:Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0
Princes Street Gardens
park in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Ulayiti assumed (based on copyright claims… · CC BY-SA 3.0
St Mary's Cathedral
church building in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
National Monument of Scotland
monument in City of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Photo: Colin · CC BY-SA 4.0
Haymarket railway station
railway station in Haymarket, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Stories are written by an AI from public map and encyclopaedia data and may contain mistakes.