The Royal Mile is the simplest walk in Edinburgh and the one everyone gets slightly wrong: they grind up it, against the slope, into the wind. Start at the castle instead and let gravity do the work — a kilometre and a half of downhill from the rock to the palace, with a thousand years of the city stacked along it.
Begin on the Esplanade, where the view back down the street is the whole Old Town in one frame. Walk down through the Lawnmarket, where the tenement lands lean in overhead and the closes — the steep alleys — drop away on either side. St Giles', with its crown spire, is the hinge of the Mile; duck in for the Thistle Chapel. The Mercat Cross beside it still hears royal proclamations read aloud. Past the World's End pub, the old city wall, the street loosens into the Canongate and its leaning Tolbooth clock.
It ends at the gates of Holyroodhouse, the King's palace, with Arthur's Seat green behind it. Buses run back up from the Canongate — or, if the legs are willing, climb the crags instead.
