Princes Street, Edinburgh

Beyond Waverley Station old and new Edinburgh are linked by the North Bridge, the site of Hamilton Beattie's Balmoral Hotel - built in 1902 in the style of the expansion era. Even before its extensive renovation, it was the top hotel on the square.

The Scottish national archives, some of which date from the 13th century, are kept in Register House, a building designed by Robert Adam.

This Neo-gothic monument (200ft/61m high) to Sir Walter Scott on East Princes Street was unveiled in 1844 and was built according to the plans of George Meikle Kemp. A winding staircase of 287 steps leads up to the top. Restored in 1992, the marble statue of the poet with his favorite dog Maida at his feet was the work of Sir John Steel. The 64 figures on the monument are either characters from Scott's novels or from Scottish history.

Near Waverley Bridge stands a memorial to the missionary and African explorer David Livingstone.

The highlight of Princes Street Gardens is a floral clock (1903) for which the plants are renewed throughout the year. It is said to be the oldest such clock in the world. At the western end of the garden lie the churches of St John and St Cuthbert and the Ross Open Theatre where bagpipe music and Scottish dancing are performed during the summer.

Paintings of some of the leading figures in Scottish history from the 16th century to the present day can be seen in the National Portrait Gallery at No. 2 Queen Street to the northeast of Princes Street. The highlight here is certainly the huge processional frieze (William Hole, 1898) showing Scotland's most famous personalities. Among the celebrities recorded in oil are Robert Burns (Nasmyth), Sir Walter Scott (Raeburn), David Hume (Ramsay), Sean Connery (John Bellany), Robert Louis Stevenson, James Watt and Mary Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora MacDonald, Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Thomas Carlyle, Hugh McDiarmid, Muriel Spark and the Queen Mother. Portrait artists whose works are displayed here include Reynolds, Epstein, Tischbein, Kokoschka, Gainsborough, Moffat, Robert Heriot Westwater and James Guthrie. Historical landscapes such as studies of Falkland Palace, Seton Palace and Peter Tilleman's "Battle of Glenshiels" are also on show.