Rediscovering the beauty of Edinburgh in lockdown

We're nudging close to three months in lockdown.

March and April already feel like distant memories as we clock in for week 11 working from home waiting for the  new normal to formally introduce itself.

Everyone's story of the spring of 2020 will be different. It has been a time of great upheaval and a strange sense of dislocation from family, friends, work and society.

The Springsteen lyric "no place to be, and miles to go" sums up much about lockdown where long days still have to be filled when almost everything has closed; our access to shops, cafes, bars, venues, places to go, things to see and do all cut off.

Atuning to the silence has been a challenge too. The yawning emptiness of roads, the lack of people on pavements. Or anywhere.

But there are positives.  Stripped of its chaos and crowds, Edinburgh has revealed its true beauty.


I haven't spent so much time here since leaving at the age of 18, and it has been a joy to rediscover many of its cobbled streets and hidden mews, its unexplored network of cycle paths, its parks and coast.

We've walked every day, mile after mile from Musselburgh to Morningside, from Southside to Stockbridge, Leith, Portobello, the city centre, the Old Town and New Town, and round and round Holyrood Park

The emptiness has showcased its gems, many hidden in plain sight.

I'd never been down the Innocent Railway, following it from the tunnel at St Leonard's covered in fabulous art, to Duddingston, or explored the network of paths which link into the old Caledonian rail line. The central point offers five different directions taking you from Newhaven and Trinity to Granton and  on to Haymarket.

In the city, the statue of Adam Smith, Kirkcaldy's finest, casts a stern gaze down an empty Royal Mile.

At the start of lockdown it was possible to climb from the Scottish Parliament to the the doors of Edinburgh Castle and encounter barely a handful of folk. Ten weeks on, and the historic cobbles remain quiet, and completely shorn of tourists.


With all shops, bars and restaurants closed, the city centre basks in silence still. From Waterloo Place to Charlotte Square, the pavements and roads are still almost empty. A  man on a Penny Farthing caught our eye one evening, while the sight and sound of a Sinclair C5 whirring past was another unexpected sight.

Solitude abounds in Edinburgh this Spring, and allows people to explore, and gems to shine.

The landmarks, architecture and artwork no longer fade into the background - ghost signs abound, graffiti catches the eye, and the detail of historic pieces come alive once more.

But so do the eyesores. Is there anything more jarring and ugly than the hideous patchwork job done on Victoria Street?

In any other city the curved, cobbled street, packed with brightly coloured shops below town houses which soar to the sky would be a vibrant, creative hub, free of traffic and preserved with integrity. In Edinburgh, it's treated shabbily.

So we look outwards once more, and drink in the views.

The top of Calton Hill offers a stunning panorama of the city, down to the bridges across to Fife and on to east Lothian, while, a hike round the Radical Road at Holyrood Park points you in the opposite direction and reveals how beautifully green the city really is.

If lockdown does anything, it gives us the chance to reconnect with our home towns and cities, and maybe, finally, appreciate what we really have.

And there is still so much to explore.