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The city centre is divided in two. South of Princes Street Gardens is the medieval Old Town, a rabbit warren of narrow alleys and closes. Running through the heart of the Old Town, from the Castle down to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is the Royal Mile, one of the busiest tourist thoroughfares in the world. South of the Royal Mile the semi-subterranean Cowgate runs under the bridges to meet the cobbled Grassmarket, lined with rowdy boozers, and the upward sweep of Victoria Street with its quirky independent shops. South of the Royal Mile is also Edinburgh’s Museumland, featuring the big two, the Museum of Scotland and Royal Museum of Scotland, as well as a few more ghoulish surprises, sprinkled amongst the older parts of the University. East of the Cowgate, Holyrood Road leads to the new Scottish Parliament building, due for completion late in 2003 and already attracting a growing number of hotels and restaurants which reflect the area’s new-found cachet.

Overlooking the parliament building is Edinburgh's largest volcano, Arthur's Seat, an authentic piece of mountain wilderness within a stone's throw of the city centre. Tucked behind Arthur’s Seat is Duddingston, one of the city’s few remaining urban villages.

North of Princes Street is the neoclassical New Town, built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to improve conditions in the city. The main thoroughfare is George Street, which links St Andrew Square in the east and Charlotte Square in the west. Once the bastion of prudent financial management, this part of the New Town is now where the city’s fashionistas like to spend their cash in style, though Charlotte Square has kept its serious business head. Parallel to George Street is Princes Street, once the city’s finest shopping street but now usurped by its trendy neighbour and looking a bit dowdy by comparison. North of George Street, Queen Street marks the boundary of the ‘First New Town’, as it was known, before it spread towards the Forth and multiplied.

The eastern New Town is bordered by Broughton Street, heart of the city's gay scene and one side of the so-called ‘Pink Triangle’. As well as being home to many of the hippest bars and clubs this part of town has a laid-back feel, redolent of Manhattan’s East Village. Looming over the Pink Triangle is Calton Hill whose summit and sides are studded with some of Edinburgh’s most sublime Regency terraces as well as some of its most bizarre monuments.

Only a ten-minute walk north from George Street is Stockbridge. Not that many visitors discover this former village, as the locals tend to keep it to themselves, but its nooks are worth seeking out. The streets have a real community feel – greengrocers' shops mingle with delis and bistros, jewellers and junk shops and second-hand bookstores – and the Water of Leith gently tickles its midriff. The neighbourhood rubs shoulders with Inverleith, altogether more suburban and sedate, but hiding the Royal Botanic Garden up its verdant sleeve.

The city’s West End is a seamless extension of the New Town, with its perfect neoclassical symmetry and discreet old money. A short distance to the south, and possibly too close for comfort, is The Exchange, Edinburgh’s shiny new international financial centre, which has breathed new life back into an area that had largely lain dormant since the demise of canal transport and the city’s brewing industry. Incongruously placed on the other side of Lothian Road is Edinburgh’s mini-theatreland, with a trio of the city’s top arts venues supporting a cluster of good restaurants.

South Edinburgh is where town and gown meet head on. South from the Old Town is the district of Southside which today forms the heart of the University quarter. Only a stone’s throw away, net curtains twitch at the antics of the city’s undergraduates in the genteel suburbs of Bruntsfield, Merchiston and Morningside.

Northeast of the city centre is Leith, Scotland's major port in its heyday, but when the fishing and shipping trade decanted south, the heart was ripped out of the district. Leith has undergone a dramatic transformation, however. Warehouse conversions, gourmet restaurants, bars and bistros line the waterside and the Royal Yacht Britannia sits proudly at her new home, Ocean Terminal. Flanking the rejuvenated old port, like a couple of antique bookends, are the sleepy former fishing port of Newhaven and the faded seaside resort of Portobello.

Beyond the city bypass are the Lothians. East Lothian keeps an air of gentle well-being with its tidy rural towns and villages and string of exclusive golf courses, while neighbouring Midlothian is still struggling to recover from the devastation of the mining industry. West Lothian is home to Scotland’s so-called ‘Silicon Glen’. The region’s high-tech industries were once held up as the bright pilot light to spark Scotland’s economic recovery, but more recently the lustre has begun to fade with a series of closures.

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