Palace of Holyroodhouse

The Palace of Holyroodhouse is where the Royal Mile ends and where Scottish royal history turns most personal. It is the monarch's official residence in Scotland, still used each summer for Holyrood Week and for state occasions, and it grew from the guesthouse of Holyrood Abbey, founded by David I in the twelfth century, into a Renaissance palace under James IV and James V and a Baroque one under Charles II, whose architect Sir William Bruce gave it the elegant quadrangle you walk around today. The visit includes the State Apartments — a sequence of increasingly grand rooms with fine plasterwork ceilings, tapestries and royal portraits, culminating in the Great Gallery hung with portraits of Scottish kings, many of them imagined — and then the older north-west tower, where the mood changes completely. Up a narrow turnpike stair are the chambers of Mary, Queen of Scots: her bedchamber, and the small supper room where, in 1566, her secretary David Rizzio was dragged from her presence and stabbed to death by her husband Lord Darnley's conspirators. It is the most vividly told story in Edinburgh. Beyond the palace, admission includes the ruined nave of Holyrood Abbey, roofless and atmospheric under Salisbury Crags, and access to the palace garden. A multimedia guide in several languages is included. The King's Gallery, which hosts exhibitions from the Royal Collection, is ticketed separately. Because this is a working palace, it closes when the King is in residence and for official events, and current published hours show it closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with last admission well before closing — so check the date before you build a day around it.

Holyrood's two great stories are bookends to Scottish monarchy. Mary arrived here in 1561 as an eighteen-year-old widowed queen returning from France, and her six years in residence — the marriage to Darnley, Rizzio's murder in her presence, Darnley's own death at Kirk o' Field, the marriage to Bothwell — played out in and around these rooms before her abdication and flight to England. A century later, after the Union of the Crowns had taken the court to London, Charles II ordered the palace rebuilt, though he never lived in it; later still, Bonnie Prince Charlie held court here briefly in 1745. Queen Victoria revived royal use, and the palace has been the setting for royal life in Scotland ever since.

Visiting well: allow sixty to ninety minutes for the palace and abbey, more if the garden is open in good weather. Start promptly, as last admission is an hour and a half before closing. The multimedia guide is excellent and makes the State Apartments far more interesting than wandering alone. In Mary's chambers, take your time — the rooms are small and the staircases tight, so they can bottleneck on busy days. Afterwards, the Abbey ruins are the most photogenic spot on the site, framed by Salisbury Crags. Photography rules inside the palace can be restrictive; check on the day.

Fit Holyroodhouse into a bottom-of-the-Mile morning or afternoon. The Scottish Parliament building, with its free visitor exhibition, faces the palace across the road; Holyrood Park and the paths up Arthur's Seat start a few minutes' walk away; and the Canongate, the lower Royal Mile, leads back uphill past the Museum of Edinburgh and Canongate Kirk. Combination tickets that bundle the palace with Britannia, the castle or other sights are available through Tiqets, and the Royal Collection Trust allows visitors to convert tickets into a pass for repeat visits within a year — worth asking about if you are staying long.