How many days do you need in Edinburgh?
Three days. That is the length of the itinerary we built for Edinburgh.
Here is what each day holds. Every stop below carries its time, and every gap says how to get to the next stop, with the walk or drive time wherever both stops are mapped.
Edinburgh · 3 days United Kingdom
Best time: May, June, and September for long daylight and the best chance of dry.
The Royal MileDay 1
🏰9:30 AMEdinburgh Castle
On the volcanic plug above the city, holding the Scottish crown jewels and the Stone of Destiny. The one-o'clock gun still fires daily except Sunday.
🚶 ~13 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.5 mi
📍1:00 PMRoyal Mile and the closes
The spine from castle to palace, with narrow closes dropping off both sides into hidden courtyards. Some run underground beneath later buildings.
🚶 ~17 min · 🚗 ~2 min · 0.6 mi
🏰4:30 PMHolyrood Palace
The monarch's official Scottish residence, with the ruined abbey behind it and the room where Mary Queen of Scots watched her secretary murdered.
Arthur's Seat and the museumsDay 2
📍8:30 AMArthur's Seat
An extinct volcano 251m above the city, climbable in about an hour from Holyrood, with the whole Firth of Forth laid out at the top.
🚶 ~30 min · 🚗 ~4 min · 1.1 mi
🖼️12:30 PMNational Museum of Scotland
Free, enormous, and genuinely good: Dolly the sheep, the Lewis chessmen, and a roof terrace most visitors never find.
🚶 ~2 min · 🚗 ~1 min · 410 ft
📍4:00 PMGreyfriars Kirkyard
A seventeenth-century burial ground of table tombs and mortsafes fitted to stop body-snatchers. The names on the stones are why parts of it feel oddly familiar.
New Town and the waterDay 3
🖼️10:00 AMScottish National Gallery
Free, and small enough to do properly: Titian, Vermeer, Raeburn's skating minister.
🚶 ~23 min · 🚗 ~3 min · 0.9 mi
📍1:00 PMDean Village and the Water of Leith
A former milling hamlet in a gorge five minutes from the shopping street, with a river walkway running out through Stockbridge.
🚶 ~37 min · 🚗 ~5 min · 1.4 mi
🌳6:30 PMCalton Hill
Ten minutes up for monuments including a deliberately unfinished Parthenon, and the classic view back along the ridge at sunset.
This is how Petrel lays out a trip. Upload your own confirmations and it builds this for your dates: flights and hotels included, with live flight status and the travel time between stops.
This is one of 126 free itineraries. Open it, change anything you want, and it becomes your trip.