The streets worth walking
Morningside Road runs the length of the district, and the pleasure is in the side turnings: the Victorian villas of Church Hill, the Hermitage of Braid's wooded gorge with its eighteenth-century house and walled garden, and Blackford Hill above it. The climb to Blackford's summit takes twenty minutes from the road and gives the postcard view of the castle and Arthur's Seat with the Forth behind. Further south, Braidburn Valley Park's cherry avenue and the path to Craiglockhart Hill are both quiet on a weekday morning.
Eating and drinking
The Dominion Cinema, family-run since 1938 with sofas and footstools in the front rows, is the local institution — book the Gold seats and eat afterwards. For food, Montpeliers' sister sites, Falko for Austrian cakes, and Cafe Grande for a long breakfast. Earthy on Canonmills and the Morningside greengrocers cover self-catering; the Merlin and the Canny Man's are the two pubs, the latter an eccentric, cluttered Edinburgh classic that has refused to modernise for a century.
Out of town, easily
This is the side of the city that faces the hills. The 4 and 15 buses reach Fairmilehead and the Pentlands park entrance in twenty minutes for Caerketton and Allermuir, both under two hours return. Swanston, a hamlet of thatched cottages Robert Louis Stevenson summered in, sits at the foot of the same hills. For a longer day, the bus to Roslin and Rosslyn Chapel takes half an hour from the south side.
Getting around
Morningside is further out — twenty-five minutes by bus to Princes Street, forty on foot — and that distance is exactly why it is quiet and why the homes here have more space. Buses 5, 11, 15, 16, 23 and 41 run into the centre constantly. Parking is the easiest of any of our neighbourhoods, with unrestricted streets a short walk from most addresses, so this is the base to choose if you are touring Scotland by car.
