Groups of people enjoying a summer day in Princes Street Gardens in central Edinburgh. The Neo-Gothic Scott Monument is centre back of the photo.
The hugely popular Princes Street Gardens are right in the very heart of Edinburgh, between the shops of Princes Street and the New Town on one side and the railway line and the Old Town on the other. The two gardens, divided by The Mound, were designed in the 1770s, but not built until the Nor Loch, a marshland which had helped to defend Edinburgh in medieval times.
The Scott Monument is the world’s largest monument dedicated to a writer, standing 200′ tall. It can be ascended (via 287 steps) for a great view of Edinburgh. Sir Walter Scott was a Scottish writer who was born in Edinburgh but spent part of his childhood in the Scottish Borders, where he learned many of the local folk-tales and legends from an aunt. He went on to establish the Historical Novel as a genre, in the Romantic style. His works are often considered dated nowadays, but at their time they were instrumental in establishing what we still think of as Scottishness (did he actually invent Scottishness?) and they attracted huge numbers of tourists to see the areas of Scotland which were depicted in his novels and poems.
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