Edinburgh

Edinburgh and Glasgow have long been keen rivals for investments in business and jobs. So it says much for Scottish honesty and fairness that a Glasgow University study done in 1988 put Edinburgh at the top of 38 British cities for "quality of life." Survey respondents cited Scotland's capital for its good race relations, as well as its health, leisure, and sports facilities.

These findings will surprise few people who know Auld Reekie, the affectionate if critical nickname bestowed when Edinburgh was enveloped in the fog and fug from uncounted coal fires and chimneys of industrial plants. Central heating has replaced most of the coal fires, and virtually all of the plants have gone, they and their workers victims of wrenching economic change.

Edinburgh today is an important commercial, banking, and arts center, its annual festival drawing tourists by the thousands. Once a provincial capital, it is now cosmopolitan. Yet Edinburgh remains distinctively Scottish. Nobody, except a foreigner or naive Sassenach (Gaelic for Englishman), raises an eyebrow at the sight of a kilted man striding the hilly streets and, as likely as not, entering a bank, there to negotiate a big bucks deal. That mingling of tradition with modernity typifies the city that is often called "the Athens of the North."

Like its Greek counterpart, Edinburgh is built on a series of hills, some of them steep. And though it has been capital of Scotland only since the twelfth century (long enough, in all conscience), Edinburgh has a venerable and diverse cultural history. Economist philosopher Adam Smith and historian philosopher David Hume were only two of the luminaries who made Edinburgh a magnet for scholars in the 1700s.

For most people, though, what gives Edinburgh its unforgettable distinction is its Scottish and English royal heritage and dramatic mixture of architectural styles and periods. The city doesn't have the physical luminosity of Paris, Rome, or Athens: many of its buildings are of granite, which is grayly durable. What Edinburgh does have is a livable, human scale, with only half a million people or so; and the bustle and vigor of a nation proud of itself and determined to maintain its identity while adapting to the modern world.

Within the city limits are no fewer than 28 golf courses, and close at hand are world renowned sea and freshwater fishing, empty and unspoiled countryside with first class hunting (shooting in British terminology), and much else for the outdoorsperson.