Edinburgh Castle is a popular tourist destination in Scotland. In its time, the castle has served as a military fortress, royal residence, prison during wartimes, and now a historic site. Historians and archaeologists are not sure when the castle was originally built, but records show it has stood atop its hill at least since the reign of David I of Scotland, who ruled the country from 1124 to 1153.

The castle offers a lot of fun, virtual resources to explore. The audio tour and the virtual 3D tour are good places to start. The castle’s interpretation manager, Steve Farrar, wrote a blog post which offers some family-friendly ways to explore Edinburgh Castle online. Rick Steve also has a great video below that briefly tours the castle. Take a look to learn a bit of the castle’s history.

Recommended Reading

The Library has so many different items in its collection to do with castles, fairytales, and the locations we’ll be visiting over the next few blog posts. You can search for these items and place a hold >

Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins

Millie can’t believe her luck when she’s accepted into one of the world’s most exclusive schools, located in the rolling highlands of Scotland. Everything about Scotland is different: the country is misty and green; the school is gorgeous, and the students think Americans are cute.
The only problem: Mille’s roommate Flora is a total princess.
She’s also an actual princess. Of Scotland.

At first, the girls can barely stand each other–Flora is both high-class and high-key–but before Millie knows it, she has another sort-of-best-friend/sort-of-girlfriend. Even though Princess Flora could be a new chapter in her love life, Millie knows the chances of happily ever afters are slim . . . after all, real life isn’t a fairy tale . . . or is it?

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
Two years after the events of “Case histories” left him a retired millionaire, former detective Jackson Brodie has followed Julia, his occasional girlfriend and former client, to Edinburgh for its famous summer arts festival. But when he watches a man brutally attacked in a traffic jam–the apparent victim of an extreme case of road rage–a chain of events is set in motion that will pull the wife of an unscrupulous real estate tycoon, a timid but successful crime novelist, and a hardheaded female police detective into Jackson’s orbit. Suddenly out of retirement, Brodie is once again in the midst of several mysteries that intersect in one giant and sinister scheme.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel Dalhousie is a philosopher by training, and an amateur sleuth by choice. When a young man falls from a balcony to his death, Isabel does not believe it was an accident. Plunging deep into the shady business community of Edinburgh, she is determined to root out the truth.

A Strange Scottish Shore by Juliana Gray
Scotland, 1906. A mysterious object discovered inside an ancient castle calls Maximilian Haywood, the new Duke of Olympia, and his fellow researcher Emmeline Truelove north to the remote Orkney Islands. No stranger to the study of anachronisms in archaeological digs, Haywood is nevertheless puzzled by the artifact: a suit of clothing that, according to family legend, once belonged to a selkie who rose from the sea and married the castle’s first laird. But Haywood and Truelove soon realize they’re not the only ones interested in the selkie’s strange hide. When their mutual friend Lord Silverton vanishes in the night from an Edinburgh street, their quest takes a dangerous turn through time, which puts Haywood’s extraordinary talents–and Truelove’s courage–to their most breathtaking test yet
 

Next week we are wrapping up our summer series of Armchair Traveler. Where do you think we’re heading? Where do you want The Library to virtually visit this fall? Let us know in the comments below!

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