THE ATHENS OF THE NORTH

They say the best time to be on Arthur's Seat is at sunrise. I'd made my mind up that that was how I'd start the day - clambering up the rock face to watch the golden rays of the morning sun fall across Edinburgh as the city wakes up.

So, amazingly, that is what I did. And there was a lot about that adventure that I really ought to have realised, long before I set out. We'll come to that. First a little context...

Arthur's Seat is a rock, a mountain if you will, formed by prehistoric volcanic activity, and carved out of the landscape by the same glacier that slowly eroded its way across southern Scotland two million years ago. It's massive. 900ft tall, I found out later from a tour guide on a bus. It sits to the South East of the city, overlooking Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Parliament, like a permanent reminder of the difference between geological power and political debate. And it's a mountain. Did I mention that? It is definitely a mountain.

"What am I doing?" I panted, half-way up. The path was steep and craggy and my feet were already tired. It was cold and dawn was just breaking on the other side of the dark rock ahead of me. The sky was laced with early-morning clouds, criss-crossing across the purple and gold sunrise. I tightened my backpack and scrambled on.

I later learned that there's a much easier route up. Wikipedia describes it as a 'simple ascent from the east, where a grassy slope rises above the loch...' - a walk in the park compared to the steep climb up the south side.

However, I did make it and I did sit there for a while, watching buildings sparkle and street-lamps flicker off. You can see it all from up there - the entire city stretches out before you like a medieval map. It was really quite wonderful. A man in a yellow jogging top, puffed up behind me and put his hands on his hips. I think he'd run all the way.

You know, sometimes I think nature is out to get me lost. If the difficult climb up Arthur's Seat had been exhausting, it was nowhere near as dangerous as my aimless scrabble down through the gorse and the thistles. There was one point when I crouched with a low centre-of-gravity and wondered just how close I was to falling off the edge. Nature had dragged me off the path, and almost (I realised) dragged me off the cliff altogether.

"This is really dangerous," I said to myself, marvelling at how these moments in real life aren't accompanied by dramatic music or sound-effects. I very carefully crawled back round the mountain to where I thought the main path might be. Thankfully, I was right. I emerged onto it as a young man dressed like a romantic poet looked up from the book he was reading on the way down.

-

I remembered from somewhere that they call this city The Athens of the North. I've not been to Athens, but I strongly suspect that they ought to rename it The Edinburgh of the South. When people choke through the smog and stand in front of the ruins of the Parthenon, they ought to say, "Well, it's impressive in a way, aye, but it's no exactly Edinburgh Castle."

I got on one of those open-top bus tours and decided to use it to get the best overview of the city. I'm glad I did. It was one of those that you could get off wherever you liked around the city. I was unimpressed to learn though that the first stop was Arthur's Seat!

"If you're going up," said the tour guide in an elegant brogue, "Make sure ye wrap up warm and wear sensible shoes." Noted.

First disembarkment for me though was Greyfriars Bobby and the National Museum of Scotland. Greyfriars Bobby was a dog who faithfully guarded his master's grave every day for fourteen years. When Bobby died, the church gave him his own gravestone (which is almost permanently surrounded by a crowd of Spanish people it seems) and a small bronze statue of a terrier.

I eavesdropped on the Spanish tour guide's very fluid and eloquent presentation. I say 'eavesdropped' but in truth I don't know any Spanish so the whole thing looked like a one-man performance of Hamlet, camped up to the point where the Spaniards were almost in tears with laughter... in front of the grave of a dead dog.

The National Museum of Scotland is well worth a visit. As soon as I walked in I felt as though as I was right in the middle of one of Prince Albert's Great Exhibitions. There is so much to see there, in the galleries that fan out from the central atrium. I learned about hot air balloons, the eye of the giant squid, James Hutton's unequalled geological discoveries and Egyptian mummification. And I was only there for fifteen minutes. I do like a museum.

I stopped next at the Castle. I specifically wanted to be there to hear the one-o-clock cannon. Edinburgh Castle is a fully operational military barracks, as well as Scotland's biggest tourist attraction, and every day (except Sundays, Christmas Day and Easter) they fire a cannon at exactly one o'clock in the afternoon.

I don't know why.

I sat under a statue of Frederick, Duke of York and watched the tourists. As my phone ticked over from 12:59 to 13:00, the cannon exploded, reverberated across the valley and a hundred people jumped out of their skin. I didn't go in the Castle as the queue was too long, but I might go back tomorrow.

After a brief exploration of the business end of the Royal Mile (bagpipers, selfie-sticks, whisky shops, get your tartan here) I picked up a weird sandwich and then went for a wander.

You know, JK Rowling must have really liked writing in coffee shops. I counted at least three where apparently "Harry Potter was born" while she scribbled away in the corner. She can't have come up with the idea in all of them, can she?

I went to the National Gallery of Scotland next. It's a lot like the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, only smaller, and more Scottish.

"Ye'll have to carry yer rucksack in yer hands," said the security guard as I swung through the entrance doors. I complied, but I still don't really know why.

"And Lo, I give you the plasma ball."

"Call me Mary Poppins again, I dare you."

I invented a game in the National Gallery of Scotland. Without reading the plaque, try and figure out what's going on in the painting. I don't know what to call it - maybe Gallery Guess, or Classical Captions. I amused myself quietly with that as I wandered round the quiet halls of fine art.

It was a weird sandwich you know. They served it on a chalkboard. That's just odd. Use a plate. Or are the chefs busy conjugating Latin verbs on them in the kitchen I wonder?

After all that, I wandered back past the Scott Monument (£5 entry fee to see something you can see for miles anyway as it's 200 feet tall, clever). Sir Walter Scott was looking equally unimpressed today. Apparently, when he died he told people he didn't want a fuss made over him. At 200ft tall, the monument is the biggest memorial to a writer, anywhere in the world. Good job they didn't make a fuss I suppose.

I realised on my way back to the hotel that I've injured my knee a bit. I think I've probably done a bit too much walking today. Or maybe it was the artful way I nearly fell off Arthur's Seat this morning. Anyway, I decided to give it a bit of a rest before dinner, so I had a short nap. It still hurts a bit.

I will definitely sleep tonight. It's raining now, which somehow only adds to the elegance of this gentle city. There really is something quite uniquely pleasant but undefinable about it.

It's like London, but it's nothing like it. It's like Bath, but not really. It has history, like Liverpool or Bristol, say, and yet happily it doesn't have the busy buzz of any of those places, or the pressure-cooker of our own capital. It reminds me of all of them, and yet none of them at all. That's a great thing, because in the future when I look back on this city break, I will be in no doubt at all that the only place it's really like is Edinburgh, the 'Edinburgh of the South' of the North.