Walking the Royal Mile in Edinburgh: what is free, and what needs a ticket

The rock under Edinburgh Castle is the plug of a volcano that went cold some 350 million years ago. When the ice sheets moved across it from the west, the hard rock split the flow and sheltered a long tail of softer ground behind it. That tail, a ridge sloping gently east for well over a kilometre, is the street now called the Royal Mile.

A town built on a ridge cannot spread sideways. Hemmed in by its wall, and by a marshy loch where Princes Street Gardens are today, old Edinburgh grew upwards instead: tenements of eight, ten and more storeys, with the alleys called closes dropping steeply between them. The street is still one continuous line from the castle to the palace, and it is free to walk. What a visitor needs to know is which of the doors along it are free as well, and which three need a ticket bought before the day.

One street, five names

The Royal Mile is a nickname. On the map it is Castlehill, then the Lawnmarket, the High Street, the Canongate and, for the last few metres, Abbey Strand. The Canongate was a separate town until 1856, which is why it has a tolbooth and a church of its own. The length is about a Scots mile, an old measure longer than the English one: roughly 1.8 kilometres.

Walk it downhill, from the castle to the palace. Without stopping it takes twenty-five minutes. With the stops below it fills a day.

The castle from the esplanade, which is as far as you get without a ticket. Photo: Daniel Kraft, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

What is free, from the top down

• The castle esplanade. The parade ground in front of the gate, with views north and south over the city. In summer it is filled by the grandstands of the military tattoo.
• The Writers' Museum. In Lady Stair's Close, off the Lawnmarket: a house of 1622 given over to Burns, Scott and Stevenson.
• St Giles' Cathedral. The town church, where John Knox preached. Entry is free, with a donation asked. See the Thistle Chapel, a small room of carved oak finished in 1911.
• The Heart of Midlothian. A heart set in the cobbles beside St Giles', on the site of the old prison. Local people spit on it for luck, so do not stand on it.
• The closes. Step into any that is open. Advocate's Close frames the view north, and Dunbar's Close, on the Canongate, hides a garden laid out in seventeenth-century style.
• The Museum of Edinburgh and the Canongate Kirk. The city's own museum, in a sixteenth-century house, and across the street the churchyard where the economist Adam Smith is buried.
• The Scottish Parliament. The building by Enric Miralles, opened in 2004, at the foot of the street. Visitors can go in on most days.

The crown spire of St Giles', finished about 1495. Photo: Tony Hisgett, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

The Canongate Tolbooth of 1591, on the lower half of the street. Photo: rboed, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

The three sights to book ahead

Edinburgh Castle

Entry is by ticket for a fixed time, and in summer the day's tickets are often gone before the morning is over. Book on the castle's own site, days ahead in July and August, and take the first slot: the street behind you is empty at that hour. Allow two hours inside for the Crown Room with the Honours of Scotland, the Great Hall, the twelfth-century chapel of St Margaret, which is the oldest building in the city, and the gun fired at one o'clock on most days.

One correction to older guidebooks: the Stone of Destiny, on which Scottish kings were crowned, is no longer in the Crown Room. It moved to the new museum in Perth in 2024.

The Real Mary King's Close

In the 1750s the city built its Royal Exchange, now the City Chambers, on top of several closes, using the lower storeys of the old houses as foundations. The streets survive underneath. They are visited only on a guided tour of about an hour, in small groups at fixed times, with steep steps and low ceilings. The evening and weekend tours sell out first.

The Palace of Holyroodhouse

The King's official residence in Scotland. The visit goes through the state rooms to the chambers of Mary, Queen of Scots, where her secretary David Rizzio was stabbed to death in 1566, and out into the roofless nave of the abbey founded in 1128. The palace closes to visitors when the King is in residence, usually for a week around the start of July, and on other dates through the year: see our page for the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

The entrance of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, at the foot of the Royal Mile. Photo: Daniel Kraft, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Reading the partner's listings

Our partner sells no ticket to Edinburgh Castle. Listings with the castle in their name are audio tours told from outside the gate, and one of them is still named after the Stone of Destiny.

• Palace of Holyroodhouse ticket and Royal Mile walk. Entry to the palace, with an audio walk down the street in the partner's app. The commentary does not cover the inside of the palace.
• The Real Mary King's Close entry ticket. A place on the guided tour under the City Chambers.
• King's Gallery ticket and sightseeing audio tour. The King's Gallery is the exhibition space beside the palace, with changing shows from the Royal Collection. It is not the palace, and the two are easy to confuse.
• Audio walks of the Royal Mile and the Old Town. Commentary and a map on your phone. No entry to anything is included.

These are the tickets and audio walks our partner sells along the Royal Mile, with today's prices:

• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Edinburgh: Palace of Holyroodhouse Ticket & Royal Mile Walk Audio Tour 2 hours4.7 (238) Book on WeGoTripfrom380 kr
• on WeGoTrip Walking Tours Edinburgh: Self-Guided Audio Walk Through Royal Mile History 2 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom72 kr
• on WeGoTrip Museum & Attraction Tickets The Real Mary King's Close: Entry Ticket 4.6 (99) Book on WeGoTripfrom396 kr
• on WeGoTrip Attraction Tickets Edinburgh: Kings Gallery Ticket & Sightseeing Audio Tour 2 hours4.4 (39) Book on WeGoTripfrom186 kr
• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Edinburgh: Must-See Sights of the Old Town 1 – 2 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom72 kr
• on WeGoTrip Sightseeing Tickets Edinburgh: Self-Guided Audio Walk Through the Old Town Heart 3 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom103 kr

Sold and delivered by WeGoTrip. You book on their site at their price; Viaqui may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

Practical notes

• The street is cobbled in parts, and the closes are stairs. Wear shoes with a grip, above all in the rain.
• In August the festivals fill the High Street with performers and the pavements barely move. Walk early, or after six.
• Going downhill, the palace is the natural end. Check its last admission before you linger at the top.

From here

Behind the palace rises Holyrood Park, with the path up Arthur's Seat, another dead volcano and the best view of the ridge you have just walked. Back up the hill, the National Museum of Scotland is free and five minutes south of St Giles'. Hours for the castle are on its page. For the rest of Edinburgh, or a longer route north, open the trip planner for the United Kingdom.

Cover photo: Anthony O'Neil, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.