Scotland Guide
Edinburgh
Getting Around
Most places worth visiting lie within Edinburgh's compact centre, which is easily explored on foot, and divided clearly between the maze-like Old Town, which lies on and around the crag linking the castle and the palace, and the New Town, laid out in a symmetrical pattern on the undulating ground to the north. Most of Edinburgh's public transport services terminate on or near Princes Street, which divides the two.
The city is generally well served by buses; the white and maroon Lothian Buses provide the most frequent and comprehensive coverage of the city (timetables and passes from offices on Waverley Bridge, Shandwick Place or Hanover Street; 
0131/555 6363, 
www.lothianbuses.co.uk ). Usefully, every bus stop displays diagrams indicating which services pass by and the routes they take; some also have digital displays indicating when buses are next due.
It is emphatically not a good idea to take a car into central Edinburgh; despite the presence of several expensive multistorey car parks, finding somewhere to park involves long and often fruitless searches. In addition, Edinburgh's street parking restrictions are famously draconian: illegally parked cars are very likely to be fined £60 by one of the swarms of inspectors who patrol day and night.