Arthur's Seat - Edinburgh - TravBuddy

Free... except for the bus ride! Can't remember which one though. Sorry!
Anybody going to Edinburgh must climb Arthur's Seat!
Right in the middle od the city, the hike is pleasant, not too difficult and the view at the top is simply stunning!
You can see everything from there. Really, if you have an afternoon free go and do it. You won't be disappointed. Promise!

On a clear day this hike up a cliff has the best view of Edinburgh, the North Sea and the countryside. The hike isn't too hard either and it's a great way to get some exercise while on vacation. Ask any cab driver in Edinburgh and they can take you right to the bottom of the cliff.

I found that hiking Arthur’s Seat was one of the best attractions of Edinburgh and was astonished you could make such a splendid ramble starting on foot from your hotel in the heart of the city.  You can’t miss the Seat, the highest of Edinburgh’s hills by a considerable margin…just head for Holyrood at the southern end of the Royal Mile to find the trailhead.

 

Turn right into Holyrood Park and the pathway is obvious, although I don’t recall and signs letting you know this was the way.  You ascend some stairs and soon encounter a very broad walking track which is “Radical Road”, named for the group of workers hired by Sir Walter Scott to construct the path in the 1820’s (they had all been fired from their jobs for exhibiting radical politics!).  This easy trail curves around the Salisbury Crags…pretty cliffs lining your way.

 

There are several options presented as Radical Road concludes, and we took the relatively rigorous (although this is by no means a strenuous endeavor) Piper’s Walk to the top, which is a bit difficult to identify and we made a few wrong guesses before getting the right trail.  Again, no signage or trail markers, but the goal is obvious and we quickly recognized our misses.

 

The most surprising thing for us when we reached the summit was how many people were there…until we realized it has road access and you can simply drive up!  We enjoyed our picnic lunch in the company of others, many in business casual attire which suggested this was a lunch spot for the Edinburgh natives.  The sights here are awesome.  Edinburgh sprawls out before you and you have expansive views of the Firth of Forth at the same time.  We continued our journey down the other side to Duddingston and celebrated our conquest with a pint at the Sheep’s Heid Inn…a tavern that has been serving since the fourteenth century!  Our circuitous route also led past the Duddingston Loch and Bird Sanctuary, which is gorgeous and reputed to be a fun visit, but it wasn’t open when we ambled by.

 

If you need to escape the crowds and stretch your legs, scaling Arthur’s Seat is the ticket!