The Botanics is the best free thing in Edinburgh that isn't a view, and it has the view too. Seventy acres on the slope at Inverleith, three hundred and fifty years of plant-collecting, and a lawn that hands you the whole city skyline as a bonus — this is the green walk, and it's a morning walk, before the light goes flat and the glasshouses fill.
Start at the East Gate and head west into the garden. Pay the small ticket for the glasshouses: the 1850s Temperate Palm House is one of the tallest in Britain, and standing under its ironwork is the warmest you'll be all year. Down to the Rock Garden — a built mountainside of stone and alpines — then up to the lawn around Inverleith House, where castle, spires and Arthur's Seat line up over the trees.
Wander the Chinese Hillside, the legacy of Edinburgh's Himalayan plant-hunters, then leave by the west gate into Inverleith Park. Finish at the boating pond, where the castle doubles in the water, and catch a bus back from Inverleith.
