The Canongate: the lower Mile and the Parliament
Canongate Kirk, Miralles' Parliament, Dynamic Earth, and the green wall of Arthur's Seat. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Canongate Tolbooth
Come up from Waverley to the lower Mile and start at the Tolbooth, its clock jutting out over the street on an iron bracket. Once the burgh court and jail of the Canongate, now The People's Story — free, and good on the working lives the grand histories skip. The lower Mile begins here, quieter than the top.

2. Canongate Kirk
A few doors down, the kirk with the curved Dutch gable and the gilded stag's head above the door — built 1691, unusual for a Scottish church of its date. The kirkyard holds Adam Smith and the poet Robert Fergusson. It's the parish church of the palace; royal weddings happen here. Slip into the graveyard even if the doors are locked.

3. Scottish Parliament
At the foot of the Mile, Enric Miralles' building — concrete, oak and granite folded into shapes borrowed from upturned boats and Mackintosh flower studies. Loved and loathed in equal measure since it opened in 2004. Wander the public concourse; the debating chamber is open when Parliament isn't sitting. Look up at the leaf-shaped windows on the MSP block.

4. Dynamic Earth
The white tented roof just south is Dynamic Earth, the planet-science centre under Salisbury Crags. Worth it with kids; otherwise the building and its forecourt are the stop, with the crags rising raw behind. Stand here for the cleanest view of how abruptly the wild edge of the city begins.

5. Palace of Holyroodhouse
Back across to the palace gates, the King's official residence in Scotland, with the roofless Holyrood Abbey beside it — the better half if you go in. The forecourt is free to stand in. From the abbey window you can see straight up at Arthur's Seat, which is where this corner of the city stops being a city.

6. Holyrood Park gate
End at the park entrance beside the palace, where the road peels off around the crags. You don't have to climb Arthur's Seat — but stand at the gate and look up the green flank. Buses back to the centre run from the Canongate; this is the quiet, monumental end of the Old Town.

The Canongate: the lower Mile and the Parliament