How to Spend a Day in Edinburgh

Making a fleeting visit to Scotland’s grand capital? With only a few hours in Edinburgh, a city that is so rich in culture and history, it’s hard to know where to begin. Where to dine and visit, not to mention the issue of navigating the bustling city! Fear not, we’ve compiled the ultimate guide on how to spend a day in Edinburgh.

Planning a Day in Edinburgh

8AM: Any great day trip starts with a delicious breakfast.  Only a short five minute walk from Edinburgh Haymarket train station, we recommend heading on over the chic Orcadian restaurant, The Skerries (part of luxury boutique hotel, The Dunstane.) With the recent addition of fine-dining expert chef, Paul, we guarantee that breakfast will be nothing but delightful.

9AM: We know a good breakfast; we’re guessing you’re probably more than full at this point. Up and ready, we recommend exploring Edinburgh Haymarket. Since the addition of the Edinburgh tramline, Haymarket has thrived – and with fantastic cafes and very alluring boutique shops to visit, we’re confident you’ll find a little piece of luxury you’ll just love.

10:30AM: It’s time to hop on a tram and head over to Edinburgh’s legendary Princes Street. Home to major high-street brand flagships stores, the street also hosts Edinburgh’s famous department store, Jenners. Go ahead – indulge in some retail therapy!

12PM: Feeling peckish? Why not head on over to Eteaket for some lunch? Located on Frederick Street, Edinburgh’s very own award-winning tea room, Eteaket sells scrumptious cakes, ciabattas – as well as afternoon tea. With an abundance of teas from around the globe readily available, we’re pretty sure you’ll be swapping out your regular Frappuccino for a take-away bag of your favourite brew.

1:30PM: Time to work off those calories! No trip to Edinburgh is complete without a trek up Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. As you pass over the cobbled streets, you’ll take in the surrounding first-class attractions – get a peek at the famous Edinburgh “closes.” Why not drop into the Scotch whisky experience and hop on a tour for an hour to find more out about Scotland’s most famous alcoholic beverage. Word is you even get a “wee dram” during the tour!

3:00PM: Hopefully you won’t be feeling too tipsy after your trip to the Scotch Whisky Experience! If you’re a fan of antiques and vintage goods, then a trip to Armstrong’s Vintage Emporium is imperative! Located only three minutes away from the Royal Mile via Cowgate, soak up the sensation of times gone past with genuine vintage dating back as far as the Victorian period.  Be warned, the shop is deceptive and much bigger than it looks from the outside!

4:00PM: In the mood for more history in action? Head on over to Real Mary King’s Close (located just off the Royal Mile) and get ready for a slice of gruesome and macabre history! Find out about the tales and stories of Mary King’s Close on a tour with us – it’s an experience not to miss out on! Be quick – tours book up fast so we recommend advanced booking.

5:00PM: Dinner time! Head back over the river to visit MP’s Bistro – located only five minutes away from Edinburgh Waverly train station. Seated on the foot of historic Calton Hill, indulge in fine-dining delights including the purse-friendly pre-theatre menu.

7:00PM: Not in a rush to get home? Located a short distance away from MP’s Bistro, is the Edinburgh Playhouse theatre – hotspot for major west-end musicals and first-class shows. From seating in the gallery, to the inner circles, experience the magnificence of the listed building, originally modelled on New York’s Roxy Cinema.

Regardless of how you spend your day, Edinburgh guarantees all but one thing – boredom. One thing’s for sure, we’re confident you’ll return soon to spend another day in Edinburgh. Who could resist its charm? 

Murder Mystery in Edinburgh

From great fires ravaging the streets of Edinburgh to the horrific and often fatal plague that struck its people down, Scotland’s capital city isn’t short of a gruesome story or two. In fact, one of its most famous tales is the story of a murder mystery in Edinburgh, or several murders as you’ll eventually find out. 

The story of the world’s most famous body snatchers, Burke and Hare, has achieved cult status – and has since been portrayed in several films – including a Hollywood blockbuster and other modern media. The story is documented to have begun 1827, after the pair had originally met and began to lodge together, along with Burke’s wife, Helen McDougal.

As was typical in those times, money was in short supply and poverty was high. In 1827, a lodger at their accommodation passed away while owing an outstanding balance of £4 to Hare. Seeking an opportunity to recoup his money, Hare tapped into his “entrepreneurial spirit” and turned to the demand of fresh bodies for anatomical studies. Justifying his plans as payment in return for the outstanding debt, Hare enlisted the help of Burke to swap the deceased lodger’s body out of his coffin, and placed heavy, cheap tanning bark in place for the funeral. The duo then delivered the lodger’s body to a professor called Knox at Surgeon Square. Accepting the body on a “no questions asked” basis, the professor paid the pair seven pounds and ten shillings for their efforts.

It was an easy opportunity to make money, but when they ran out of bodies from naturally occurring deaths, it didn’t take long for Burke and Hare to resort to murder. Their first victim was a fellow lodger, already in a poor and sickly way. Suffocating their victims in the hope they would appear dead from natural causes, the pair had quickly racked up a total of up to thirty bodies delivered to the attentive surgical students, but their downfall came when they targeted victims well-known to the public, including two prostitutes and a children’s entertainer.

Suspicious fellow lodgers, James and Ann Gray, eventually confirmed the pair were up to no good and alerted the authorities. Burke and Hare were arrested and questioned, and in order to secure a conviction, the Lord Advocate offered Hare the opportunity to testify against his partner and his wife, and save his own skin. Hare jumped at the chance and took to the stand, convincing the jury to reach a guilty verdict. Burke was hung for his crimes and, in a fitting nod to his life of crime; his body was donated to medical practices and anatomical study.

Looking For a Modern Murder Mystery in Edinburgh?

Burke and Hare might have been responsible for the most famous murder mystery in Edinburgh, but there are plenty more tales to be told. Why not try one for yourself by booking a unique murder mystery event with Real Mary King’s Close and unveil your own mystery beneath the cobbled streets of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.  

The Dark Truth, Can You Handle It?

Death and decay is coming to Edinburgh and you better be ready for it. After some amazing reviews last year, The Dark Truth Tour is returning to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a nice little twist for 2014. It looks into some of the darker tales but using a wicked comedic tone. 

When does it happen?

The Dark Truth Tour starts on the 1^st of August 2014 and will continue Thursday through Sunday until the 24^th August 2014. The Dark Truth Tour lasts for 1 hour and starts at 10.30pm each night. The Dark Truth Tour uses a mixture of frivolity and terror to interact with the audience and entertain them in such a sinister fashion as to enthrall them.  It tells tales of murder, witch trials, unexplained deaths and follows the lives of those who lived on the Mary King’s Close and other closes.

What’s it like?

You should certainly be expecting the unexpected and be prepared to be caught off guard as the Dark Truth Tour delves very deeply and murkily into Edinburgh’s gross past. You will experience the lights down low and cast wide to create the most unnerving of shadows while you learn about the darkest of truths and the deathly tales that haunt the city of Edinburgh. Will you be the brave one and see the whole thing through?

You may find that the stories are more unsettling than you thought so we recommend this tour for those 16 and over. Do you have the stomach for it? The weird and wonderful tales are linked closely to the disturbing facts about the city and its gruesome underbelly.

You could have been living in bliss to think that Edinburgh was a city with no murky past, but how wrong you were and how gruesome a way to find out. Join us for The Dark Truth Tour and find out for yourself just how dark the true story is.

Rain On The Close!

For the first time in over 100 years, visitors to Edinburgh tourist attraction Real Mary King’s Close were able to feel rain on the underground streets!

This unusual experience happened at the start of the month, when Edinburgh was hit by a large downpour that made the quadrangle above remarkably wet. The water then leaked down into the underground street, creating a rain like effect that only added to the experience of what life was like for residents before the street was closed in the early 20th century.

General Manager, Craig Miller said: “We took the opportunity to make the most of Edinburgh’s wet weather and the leak onto our Close by having some fun with our visitors. Posing for a photograph with an umbrella while it rains in an underground street is a not a daily occurrence and was a unique experience for our visitors. Seeing it rain on the Close was available for one day only while repairs took place and our visitors really embraced it.”

Whilst this was a unique experience, there are lots of other strange going ons coming up on the Close. Join us during the world renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival for our Dark Truth Tour which promises to shed some light on the sinister past of the residents of one of the 16th century’s most famous streets. Taking a winter break? We stay open all year round and have lots of special events planned for our 2014 Close Fest!

To see more fun pictures from the day, head over to our Facebook page. Got your own souvenir picture? We’d love to share it with our visitors, just post your picture on our Facebook page.

A plea for votes!

Staff take to the Close 'X Factor' style to secure your vote

If you've been on our Twitter feed or Facebook page it won't have escaped your attention that we are thrilled to have been nominated for the British Travel Award for Best UK Heritage Attraction 2012.    There's under two weeks left to vote, so our staff took to the Close to campaign for your vote! 

Craig Miller our General Manager had this to say: “It is hugely prestigious to even receive a nomination in this category, as the UK has so many wonderful heritage attractions, but we made it down to the top four, and we’re just hoping that we get enough support to make it all the way to the top spot,” comments general manager, Craig Miller.  “We don’t quite have the profile of some of the other shortlisted candidates –which includes St Paul’s Cathedral in London – but we make up for that with a visitor experience that is second to none, combining an unseen tour of Edinburgh’s buried streets and some of the best tour guides in the country!”

If you could take 5 minutes to vote for us, we would really appreciate it, you could also be in the running to win a fantastic prize from the British Travel Awards. Click here to make your vote count! There are plenty of reasons why we deserve your vote!

If you could spare a vote for our sister attraction Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth that would be marvellous - they've been nominated in the Best UK Leisure Attraction category.

THANK YOU - we very much appreciate your support!

 

The September Sigh of Relief!

So we're into September, the Royal Mile is back to normal and there is more than an Autumnal feel in the air.

RMKC Team celebrate record numbers in the style of Olympic champion Usain Bolt

For most tourism businesses and restaurants in Edinburgh, a collective sigh of relief is taken in the first week of September as the many festivals of August have finished and the tourists and performers have long gone home.  For us here at the Close, we're back to normal opening hours - 10am to 9pm (last tour) rather than 9am to 11pm (last tour) and we're reflecting on the August whirlwind! 

We welcomed a record number of people, exceeding our previous records for amount of tickets sold in a day and the amount of visitors on the tour in a day.  We've had some great feedback with 95% of our visitors saying they would recommend a visit to their friends or family, which is a testament to our fantastic team of tour guides, retail staff and managers.

One of our tour guides, Marc McKinnon who plays Walter King, the Foul Clenger, put it well -

"So the Fringe Festival has been and gone, and what a busy time it has been. Luckily for us Foul Clengers, we are used to treading through thousands of bodies each day, so it was just another day at work!

Although a completely hectic time of year, both for tourists and attractions alike, it has been so much fun to see all the staff come together and work long hours and deliver some brilliant results on tour - to the masses - daily.

Extending our opening hours as usual allowed more people to come on tours and allows more people to experience our amazing attraction. So, when all is said and done, it has definitely been a win/win, for our tourists and for our attraction, and I feel privileged to be part of our guiding team at the Close"

The 'Hoff' and the team!

One of the highlights of August at the Close was welcoming a special guest to the Close.  Of course all of our visitors are extremely special but we welcomed the legendary David Hasselhoff and his team to the Close for a tour.  The Hoff was a treat, spent time having his photo taken with staff and was a welcome morale boost at a frantic time of year!  

More Than Meets the Eye to our Tour Guides

Our tour guides quite rightly receive fantastic praise from our visitors, with 89% of our visitors in June 2012 rating them as 'very good' in our visitor research, but there's more than meets the eye to a lot of our brilliant team.

They come from all walks of life with some guides being students working with us on a part-time basis, a few are Mums returning to work after their little ones have started full-time education, quite a few are training to be actors and some have a background in history and archeology.  What they all have in common however is a passion for our unique attraction and a passion to tell the fascinating truth of Mary King's Close.

Don't be fooled into thinking they just follow a script.  Yes, they all start out with the same script of facts and stories but our guides put their own spin on the part of a full researched one-time resident of Mary King's Close.  

Agnes Chambers The Maid

Each tour guide character has its own distinct theme: Walter King is a Plague Cleaner, or Foul Clenger - a gritty soul who has one of the toughest jobs in Edinburgh's history.  Jonet Nimmo is the youngest daughter of Mary King and has had a comparatively easy upbringing on the Close (as easy as life could be in the 17th Century!).  Jonet is joined by Agnes Chambers, a maid in the Cant family home and witness to all the inside information on one of Edinburgh's most prestigious of families. Stephen Boyd is a wine merchant - who dresses in the finest cloth and will probably sell you some of his finest claret - and Robert Fergusson the Poet will give you the inside scoop on his greatest admirer, Rabbie Burns.

Research is always ongoing - if you have a question about the Close or 17th century Edinburgh you can just ask.  If we can't answer your question straight away, we'll find out the answer and let you know.

Jonet Nimmo, Mary King's Daughter

Anyway back to our tour guiding team, with August and the Festival Fringe in the offing, our team are heading into our busiest time of year (pre-booking strongly recommended at this time of year!).  But if that wasn't enough, some of them are starring in productions as part of the worlds biggest arts festival.  These productions are in no way connected to The Real Mary King's Close but if you're in town in August and looking for something a little bit different why not give these productions a try - 

Marc McKinnon (a Foul Clenger) in Smile-In Production's 'I Got It - An Actors Tale' at Stockbridge Parish Church from August 9th to August 11th 2012 at 7.30pm

Paul Vickers (another Foul Clenger!) in his own absurdist comedy show 'Twonkey's Kingdom' at the Alternative Fringe at the Hive from August 2nd to August 26th 2012 at 3pm (disclaimer: not for the easily offended!)

Connor Jones (Stephen Boyd) stars in Two Squared Production's  'Wind in the Willows' at Paradise in Augustines on George IV Bridge from August 14th to 19th 2012 at 18.50

For more information on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe click here (other productions are available!)
 

Only Street in Edinburgh Where It Never Rains....

Our first blog post comes on the same day that our brand new 'street promotion team' hit the Royal Mile and the streets of Edinburgh.  It also comes on one of the wettest days of the month so far...and that's really saying something given the dreadful weather July has given our fair city! The new team truly have their work cut out today!

The Real Mary King's Close - dry and rain-free!

Although we may moan and groan about the wet and wild weather that has been battering the city in recent weeks, the residents of Mary King's Close back in the days when it was open to the skies may have been grateful for the extra water in order to flush the 'nastiness' from the twice daily 'gardez-l'eau' sessions on the Close into the dank and reeking Nor' Loch in what is now Princes Street Gardens. 

However, for our visitors today, keeping dry is a real challenge!  A visit to the Close is providing an entertaining one hour respite from the elements and our doors remain open until 9pm this evening!

Walter King models the RMKC Poncho outside St Giles Cathedral

You can even sport one of our attractive ponchos to keep dry, adorned with the Plague Doctor (as modelled here by Walter King, one of our resident Foul Clengers! 

If you are passing by the attraction today, keep an eye out for Roberta, Mass and Douglas who will be out on the streets every day ready to welcome visitors to the city! Flash them your best smile as they work out in the challenging conditions on the Royal Mile!

Today the Real Mary King's Close is very much the only street in Edinburgh where it never rains!  

(If you're planning on sheltering from the rain in the next few days with us, you're best to prebook to avoid disappointment)