A grand old city of half a million on the Firth of Forth. Edinburgh’s Old Town has medieval cobbled streets, tall Reformation-era tenements separated by steep narrow closes and wynds and hidden courtyards intersected by the sloping Royal Mile, with Edinburgh Castle high on an ancient volcanic outcrop at one end and Holyrood Palace, home to Scottish kings and queens since the 16th century at the other. Edinburgh New Town is a relative term, being an overflow from the Old Town, covered with grand old classical and Georgian buildings dating back to the mid 18th century.