An unfinished Parthenon, an upturned telescope and a monument to Nelson, on the hill that gave Edinburgh the Athens comparison.
Calton Hill is a hundred metres high, ten minutes from Princes Street, and it carries more monuments per acre than anywhere else in Britain. It is also the reason Edinburgh was called the Athens of the North, and the reason that nickname is faintly comic.
The National Monument
Begun in 1826 as a memorial to the Scottish dead of the Napoleonic Wars, designed as a full-scale replica of the Parthenon by Charles Cockerell and William Playfair. The money ran out in 1829 after twelve columns.
It was never finished, and Edinburgh has called it Scotland’s Disgrace, the Pride and Poverty of Scotland, and the Edinburgh Folly ever since. Various proposals to complete it have surfaced over two centuries and none has been acted on, which is probably right — as a ruin that was never a building it is far more interesting than a copy of the Parthenon would have been.
The rest of the hill
The Nelson Monument of 1816 is shaped like an upturned telescope and can be climbed. On top is a time ball that still drops at one o’clock each day, dropping in time with the castle’s gun so that ships in the Forth had both a visual and an audible signal — the gun for fog, the ball for wind.
The City Observatory, by Playfair, is now Collective, a contemporary art gallery, free to enter, with a restaurant in the old observatory dome.
There is also the Dugald Stewart Monument, the small circular temple that appears on the cover of about half the books written about Edinburgh, and the Political Martyrs’ Monument to five men transported in 1794 for advocating parliamentary reform.
The view
North to the Firth of Forth and Fife. West along Princes Street to the castle on its rock, with the Old Town ridge running away to the left and the New Town grid to the right, and Arthur’s Seat rising behind. On a clear evening it is the best urban view in Britain and it costs nothing.
Practicalities
Open at all hours and free. The climb from Waterloo Place is a set of steps and takes five minutes; there is a gentler road approach from the east for wheels.
It gets busy at sunset in summer and at Hogmanay. On the morning of 1 May, the Beltane Fire Festival takes place here the night before — a large, loud, half-pagan procession that is worth knowing about if you are staying nearby and hoping to sleep.
More Landmarks
Edinburgh Castle
A fortress on a volcanic plug that has been besieged more often than anywhere else in Britain, holding the oldest crown jewels in the islands.
Palace of Holyroodhouse
The King's residence in Scotland, an abbey ruin behind it, and the room where Rizzio was stabbed fifty-six times.
The Scottish Parliament
A building that came in ten times over budget, three years late, won the Stirling Prize, and is free to walk into.