At Ediburgh Castle, in the west end of Edinburgh's Old Town in Scotland

 “Melancholy were the sounds on a winter's night.”

― Virginia Woolf
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(at the top of the Royal Mile, at the west end of Edinburgh's Old Town in Scotland) Edinburgh Castle, a stronghold that was once the residence of Scottish monarchs and now serves mostly as a museum, stands 443 feet (135 meters) above sea level and overlooks the city of Edinburgh from a volcanic crag called Castle Rock. This castle is one of the most exciting historic sites in Western Europe. Set in the heart of Scotland's dynamic capital city, it is sure to capture your imagination.

+ Between 1296 and 1341, the castle was twice captured by English invaders and twice retaken by the Scots. David’s Tower, some 100 feet (30 meters) in height, was built to honor King David II, who died in the castle in 1371, but was substantially destroyed in a siege 200 years later. The Great Hall, which also survives, was completed by James IV in 1511. In an adjacent building called the Royal Palace is the room where James VI, the future King James I of England, was born in 1566. Following the destructive siege of 1571–73, the castle’s defenses were strengthened with the construction of the Half-Moon Battery and the Portcullis Gate.

+ Edinburgh Castle was besieged repeatedly during the 17th and early 18th centuries. It was captured twice, briefly, by Covenanters during the Bishops’ Wars of 1639 and 1640 and was seized by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1650, during the English Civil Wars. Between 1689 and 1745, after the Restoration of the monarchy, Jacobite rebels unsuccessfully besieged the castle several times in their attempts to undo the Glorious Revolution, in which King James II was deposed.

+ Elsewhere on castle grounds, Scotland honors its military tradition in the Scottish National War Memorial and the National War Museum. A more ancient relic of Scottish royalty is the Stone of Scone (or Stone of Destiny), which arrived at the castle only in 1996, exactly 700 years after it was removed to England. The stone is a block of sandstone upon which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned.

+ Just outside the castle drawbridge is a large open area called the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, where grandstand seating is installed annually for an international military music festival called the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and for other summer concerts. As the backdrop to the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo during the annual festival, the castle has become a recognizable symbol of Edinburgh in particular, and of Scotland as a whole. An event that takes place with greater frequency is the firing of a loud cannon on castle grounds at exactly 1:00 PM six days a week. The One O’Clock Gun, as it is known, was first fired in 1861 as a timekeeping service for ships anchored on the nearby Firth of Forth. (Edinburgh Castle has been part of the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1995.)