Cool Places
Calton Hill
Edinburgh
Another of Edinburgh's volcanic lumps, Calton Hill is peppered with monuments and bold architecture from various eras, including the former Royal High School (soon to be a hotel), the former City Observatory (soon to be a gallery), the telescope-shaped Nelson's Monument with its signal ball that drops at 1pm every day as a time signal to mariners in Leith, and the National Monument, an unfinished temple-like construction originally built as a memorial to the dead of the Napoleonic Wars. Best of all, the views of all parts of the city and its setting are unsurpassed.
