Calton Hill

Calton Hill is the easiest big view in Edinburgh and the one on the postcards. A few minutes' walk from the east end of Princes Street, a flight of steps from Waterloo Place or a gentler road from Regent Road brings you up onto a grassy summit crowded with neoclassical monuments — the reason Edinburgh was nicknamed the Athens of the North. The most striking is the National Monument, twelve great Doric columns modelled on the Parthenon and intended as a memorial to the Scottish dead of the Napoleonic Wars; money ran out in 1829 and it was never finished, which earned it the nickname Edinburgh's Disgrace. Nearby, the Nelson Monument, designed by Robert Burn in the shape of an upturned telescope, commemorates the victory at Trafalgar; its timeball, added in 1853, was raised daily and dropped at exactly one o'clock as a time signal for ships on the Forth, coordinated with the One O'Clock Gun at the castle. A recent restoration project set out to return the timeball mechanism to full working order; check the monument's current hours before planning to climb it. The City Observatory complex, once used by astronomers, is now home to Collective, a contemporary art centre with a restaurant, and the circular Dugald Stewart Monument, a small round temple to the Enlightenment philosopher, frames the most famous photograph in the city: the Old Town skyline, the castle, the spire of the Balmoral clock tower and the Scott Monument lined up along Princes Street. Turn around and the views open over Leith, the Firth of Forth and Arthur's Seat. Sunset and sunrise are the classic times, and the hill is busiest at dusk in summer.

Getting up: from Princes Street, walk east along Waterloo Place and take the steps on the left just past the junction with Calton Road; it is a short, steep climb of a few minutes. For an easier gradient, continue along Regent Road and take the road up from there. The summit is open and grassy, with paths around the monuments, and there are several viewpoints in different directions — the south-west corner by the Dugald Stewart Monument for the classic Old Town panorama, the north side for Leith and the Firth, and the east side for Arthur's Seat and Holyrood.

Timing: Calton Hill is at its best in the golden hour, when the low sun lights the castle and the Old Town turns honey-coloured. In winter, sunset comes early in the afternoon, which makes it easy to fit in before dinner; in summer, sunset is late in the evening and the hill fills with people. Sunrise is quieter and spectacular on a clear morning. The Nelson Monument, with its steep spiral stair to a viewing balcony, charges a small entry fee and has limited hours; Collective's galleries are free. On 30 April each year the Beltane Fire Festival takes over the hill with a ticketed night of fire and drumming.

Make a walk of it: from the hill, descend to Leith Walk and the edge of Broughton, or loop back via the Old Calton Burial Ground, where the philosopher David Hume is buried in a round tomb designed by Robert Adam, and on to Waverley. Calton Hill also makes a good warm-up for Arthur's Seat if the weather is too wild for the bigger climb — you get most of the view for a fraction of the effort. Bring a layer: like everywhere high in Edinburgh, it catches the wind.