Travel by the book

Arabian Business takes a tour through the heart of Edinburgh, Scotland, in search of the capital's literary greats.

It is the place where victor frankenstein, in the eponymous book, felt momentarily relieved while fleeing the monster; where James Bond, in Casino Royale, attended school after an indiscretion at Eton; and where Jean Brodie taught her prim young women.

That place, of course, is Edinburgh, Scotland; and these are just a few of the many attractions that the city has for the literary explorer.

But where better to start a ‘bookish' expedition in the city than a trip to the top of the monument to Sir Walter Scott, the writer whose 1818 novel The Waverly gave its name to Edinburgh's main railway station and who is credited with the introduction of the historical novel in Europe?

It's not hard to find the memorial in Princes Street, one of Edinburgh's busiest thoroughfares: just look up.

The Victorian edifice is, according to some, shaped like a rocket ship. Amongst the Victorian stone sinews, a grey marble Scott sits contemplatively and a little incongruously, book in hand.

If you are moderately fit, and more importantly if you are not claustrophobic, the 280 plus narrow steps to the top will reward the energy spent.

From its highest deck, nearly 60 metres off the ground, the view across the city is grand: Princes Street stretches west past the Balmoral Hotel, Jenners Emporium, the National Galleries and down to the Caledonian Hotel and Lothian Road; to the south of Princes Street, the castle barracks sit defiant and daunting in their fortifications; and, residing over all, Arthur's Seat.

Back on the ground, the greenery that fills the valley between the ‘New Town' and the city's older side was the inspiration for Edinburgh-born Robert Louis Stevenson and his A Child's Garden of Verses.

Indeed, his ‘Summer Sun' - the ‘gardener of the world' - is still apparent in the flourishing floral arrangements around the monument.

Not far from the gardens and still in the ‘New Town', no clues are required to deduce that the statue of Sherlock Holmes in Picardy Place commemorates the work of his creator, the Edinburgh-born Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

However, for many past and present denizens of Edinburgh it is the other part of the city - the ‘Old Town' - that most fascinates.

This place - the medieval heart of the city and a World Heritage site since 1995 - is the antithesis of the New Town's elegant, Georgian architecture, its orchestrated streets and neat squares.

Instead, the Old Town is a place of crooked habitations and dark, cobbled lanes; just the sort of place that Deacon Brodie - the real-life inspiration for Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - would swing from the gallows he himself designed.

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