Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
At the top of the Royal Mile.
An introduction to Castlehill, where the Camera Obscura stands just below Edinburgh Castle.
On this page
Read the street
Castlehill is the top of the Royal Mile, the last stretch of street before Edinburgh Castle. The Outlook Tower stands on its right-hand side as you climb towards the castle.
A guide can give context without turning a place into a backdrop. Notice how the tower rises above the tenements around it, and how its rooftop chamber was placed to see in every direction.
From the roof
From the rooftop terrace you can look along the Royal Mile and up to Edinburgh Castle, over Princes Street Gardens, across to Arthur’s Seat and north over the Firth of Forth to Fife.
Begin with a detail and ask who built it, who used it and how it has changed. A view alone cannot tell you that.
A Victorian chapter
The Camera Obscura shows one side of the Old Town: a Victorian attraction that turned the city itself into the exhibit.
Look at the meeting of the two: the live image on the viewing table, and the real streets below the window.
Make room for context
Pair this reading with the tower’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places or represents the people who run them.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
