It's hard to imagine anyone visiting Edinburgh and coming away disappointed.

The attractive city has a little of everything from urban buzz to rural corners; from cosmopolitan variety and energetic festivals, to cosy relaxing pubs. Its major museums and many historic sights provide plenty to do while a glut of cafes and restaurants offer a great selection of places to unwind afterwards; and a string of clubs stay open into the small hours.

Edinburgh Castle is very much the visual hub of the city. It surveys all from its rocky knoll that rises from the jumbled medieval streets of Edinburgh's Old Town with its cobblestones and narrow wynds (alleys).

Meanwhile, to the north – beyond a band of railway lines and pretty public gardens – lies the New Town, where shrewd Georgian town planning constructed a tour-de-force of Neoclassical architecture, that regularly causes Edinburgh to be dubbed the “Athens of the North”.