National Museum of Scotland

The National Museum of Scotland is the best rainy-day decision in Edinburgh, and on a sunny day it is still one of the city's essentials. Admission is free (some special exhibitions charge), it is open daily, and it combines two very different buildings into a museum of the whole world and of Scotland in particular. The Victorian half is built around the Grand Gallery, a vast, light-filled hall of cast iron and glass that ranks among the most beautiful museum spaces in Britain, from which galleries of natural history, world cultures, science and technology, art and design branch off. Children make for the animals — the skeleton of a whale, a towering T. rex cast, a menagerie of mounted creatures — and the hands-on science galleries; adults linger over the Millennium Clock, a mechanical sculpture that comes to life at set times, and Dolly the sheep, the world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell, now preserved on display. The modern half, opened in the late 1990s in honey-coloured sandstone, tells the story of Scotland chronologically from the bottom up: geology and early peoples in the basement, then the Kingdom of the Scots, with treasures such as some of the famous Lewis chessmen, the Monymusk Reliquary and the grim Maiden, Edinburgh's own beheading machine; then the Union, industry and empire, and twentieth-century Scotland toward the top. Finish on the roof terrace, a garden of native plants with one of the best free views of the castle, the Old Town skyline and Arthur's Seat.

Planning a visit: you cannot see it all in one go, and you should not try. For a two-hour visit, pick a lane. History lovers should go straight to the Scotland galleries and work upward from the early peoples to the Kingdom of the Scots, then take the lift to the roof. Families should start in the Grand Gallery and the natural world galleries, time a visit to the Millennium Clock, and let the children loose in the interactive science and technology areas. Art and design fans will find fashion, decorative arts and Asian and world cultures galleries off the Grand Gallery. Free daily highlights tours and object handling sessions sometimes run; check what is on at the information desk.

Practicalities: the museum opens at 10am and closes at 5pm, is closed on Christmas Day and opens shorter hours on 26 December and New Year's Day. Mornings and late afternoons are calmer than midday, and school holidays and rainy weekends bring crowds. There is a café inside and a more formal restaurant on the top floor; the Southside around Chambers Street, Nicolson Street and Forrest Road has many cheaper options. The building is fully accessible. Leave coats and bags in the lockers if you are spending several hours.

Fit it into the Old Town: the museum is a two-minute walk from Greyfriars Bobby, the statue of the loyal terrier, and Greyfriars Kirkyard, one of the city's most atmospheric graveyards; from the Grassmarket and Victoria Street; and from the Royal Mile via George IV Bridge. A good wet-day plan is the museum in the morning, lunch in the Southside, and the Real Mary King's Close or the Scottish National Gallery in the afternoon. On a clear day, time your visit so you end on the roof terrace in the late afternoon light, looking straight across at the castle.