Free self-guided walking tour of Edinburgh: Podtour's free audio route

What Podtour's free route is

It's a whole route, not a sampler or a trailer: eleven stops, each with its own story, plus an introduction and a closing piece. There's no group, no meeting time, no booking and no tip. You start when it suits you and pause whenever you fancy a coffee.

You can listen in English or Spanish, and the app works offline, so you can download the route before you head out. And like every Podtour route, each story is researched and keeps what's documented apart from what's legend: when something is tradition, or simply isn't known, we tell you.

The route: "The Royal Mile, from the Castle to St Giles"

The walk heads down the upper part of the Royal Mile, from the Castle Esplanade to the Mercat Cross. It's a little over 800 metres, all downhill, with about 34 minutes of audio; the walking itself takes under a quarter of an hour, not counting the stops. Everything is heard from the street: the Castle, St Giles' Cathedral and Gladstone's Land are optional visits, separate from the route.

These are the stops, in order:

1. The Castle Esplanade and the Half Moon Battery. How a fortress that looked impregnable fell, more than once.
2. Mons Meg. The giant cannon that burst while firing a salute and spent decades in London.
3. The Stone of Destiny. The coronation stone that a group of students carried off at Christmas 1950.
4. The old Castlehill reservoir. How water reached the top of the town with no pumps or engines, and a cannonball lodged in a wall that nobody can fully explain.
5. Gladstone's Land. A merchant who left his initials high up on his house.
6. Brodie's Close. The respectable deacon of the carpenters who burgled houses by night.
7. Advocate's Close. Houses many storeys high, with neighbours of every class sharing the same stair.
8. The Heart of Midlothian and the Old Tolbooth. A jail that took up half the main street, and the heart in the cobbles that some people spit on. We explain why in "Why people spit on the Heart of Midlothian".
9. The gallows Brodie didn't invent. How the deacon's story ended, and what the papers added of their own accord.
10. Parliament Square and Knox's grave. Scotland's great reformer, buried in a spot nobody can now point to exactly.
11. The Mercat Cross. The cross that marks where the story that began at the Castle came to an end.

What Edinburgh's free walking tours usually cover

Edinburgh has a huge choice of free walking tours. The most common orientation tours cover the Old Town with a guide, leave at a set time, nearly always from the High Street, and usually last about two hours, sometimes more. They tend to take in the Royal Mile, St Giles, the Mercat Cross, Victoria Street, the Grassmarket and Greyfriars Kirkyard with the Bobby statue, and several finish by the National Museum of Scotland.

Beyond orientation tours, there are plenty of free ghost and mystery tours at night, as well as Harry Potter tours and walks round the New Town and Dean Village. Tours in other languages, Spanish especially, sometimes reach areas less often covered in English, such as Calton Hill and the Canongate, Leith or Stockbridge.

They run on tips, though group sizes and booking rules vary from one to another, so it's worth checking before you sign up.

Where Podtour's routes go

The free route deliberately doesn't follow the Royal Mile-to-Greyfriars pattern: no ghosts, no Bobby and no Harry Potter, because those stories have routes of their own. And the rest of the Edinburgh catalogue either goes to subjects the most common free tours touch on only briefly, or not at all, or tells the familiar ones differently:

• "Canongate and Holyrood: the other Royal Mile". The lower half of the street, which was once a separate town, down to the palace. It's rarely told as a story in its own right.
• "Burke and Hare and Edinburgh Medicine". On ghost tours the case is usually just one stop among many. Here it has a whole route, from the West Port to Surgeons' Hall, told without the gore. Read the outline in "Burke and Hare: the true story".
• "The Athens of the North: from the North Bridge to Calton Hill". The Enlightenment and science, with Hume, Adam Smith and the geologist Hutton: a subject with few walking tours.
• "New Town: from St Andrew Square to Stevenson's Street" and "Dean Village and the Water of Leith". The New Town, its writers and the millers' village in the gorge, by day and at an easy pace.
• "Ghosts, Witches and Legends of the Old Town". The most popular subject of all, but with every legend presented as a legend, and with its date of birth. Bobby's in it too, and he has his own article: "Greyfriars Bobby: the true story".

What a free walking tour does better

Let's be fair. A good free tour gives you things no app can: a real person who looks you in the eye, answers your questions, adapts the story to the group and gives you tips about the city. Some solo travellers are after exactly that: company and conversation. And you don't need to look at your phone or wear headphones.

A free tour suits you if you want a first lap with a guide, like asking questions or fancy meeting people. Podtour suits you if you arrive at an awkward hour, if you're travelling with children and need to stop when they do, if you'd rather go at your own pace or listen to a stop again, or if you want to know what's documented and what's legend. And they're not either-or: you could do the free route in the morning and a free tour in the afternoon.

Frequently asked questions

How much does the free route cost? Nothing. It's Edinburgh's free route, complete, with no charge and no tip.

Do I need to book or turn up at a set time? No. Start whenever you like at the Castle Esplanade, and pause and pick up again as you please.

How long does it take? About 34 minutes of audio and a little over 800 metres of walking. The total time depends on your pace and how long you linger.

Are there hills or steps? It's a steady descent all the way. The calculated route has no steps, but we haven't checked it on foot, so we can't promise it's accessible.

Do I have to go into the Castle or St Giles? No. Every stop is heard from the street. The interiors are optional and separate from the route.

Do I need an internet connection? No. The app works offline: download the route before you set off.