How To Spend 2 Days In Edinburgh [2024]

By Gemma Tedaldi | Published: 22nd November 2023 | Updated: 7th December 2023

For most the gateway to visiting Scotland or the starting point for a long weekend, Edinburgh is a city that draws in the tourists, and for good reasons. With historical architecture galore and bagpipes and tartan at every turn, Edinburgh is a city that you can’t help but fall in love with, (just like we did!).

Here is how to spend 2 days in Edinburgh, the perfect Edinburgh itinerary for first-time visitors to the city.

📍 Day 1: Victoria Street, Camera Obscura & The Royal Mile

📍 Day 2: Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street Gardens and George Street

📍 Optional Day 3: Calton Hill & Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Planning Your Trip? Use our favourite travel resources below:

Accommodation: We recommend Booking.com

Rental Car: We recommend Rentalcars.com

Travel Insurance: We recommend World Nomads

Flights: We recommend Kiwi.com

Tours: We recommend Get Your Guide

2 Days In Edinburgh Map

2 Days In Edinburgh

Day 1: Victoria Street, Camera Obscura & The Royal Mile

To start your trip off perfectly, opt for breakfast with a view at Scotts Kitchen on Victoria Street. Not only do they have some rather delicious breakfasts and smoothies, but they are situated on top of all the colourful shops along the famous Victoria Street.

Quite possibly the most picturesque street in all of Edinburgh, (if not Scotland!), Victoria Street is home to many a bustling cafe and a famous boy wizard… With quaint coffee shops, art galleries, and a Harry Potter shop or two, it is a great street to wander around. From here you can also easily drop onto the Royal Mile or up to the castle.

If it’s raining and you want to get out of the cold or if you’re after somewhere with a bit of fun, trickery, and tomfoolery all with the elegant city backdrop then the Camera Obscura is the place for you! Even on a rainy day and with potential hordes of people visiting, (depending on the time of year you visit), you can still easily buy tickets at the door on the day and be whisked away into a whole other world. There is also a wonderful roof top terrace you can visit and see the Royal Mile from above.

For our 2 days in Edinburgh and it being a girl’s weekend away, we had to book an afternoon tea, (or two…). Contini Cannonball Restaurant, located just outside Edinburgh Castle, has the most amazing traditional Afternoon Tea with a Scottish twist. Think locally caught salmon, seasonal fruits, and haggis ‘cannonballs’!

This restaurant is also a great place to come for dinner or drinks in the evening if you aren’t too full from the Afternoon Tea.

Check out our Top 10 must do experiences in Edinburgh

Day 2: Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street Gardens and George Street

First stop of the day, Edinburgh Castle! This 11th century castle sits overlooking Edinburgh and is more often than not, the one place everyone wants to visit, so be sure to pre-book your tour tickets. It is truly a stunning building inside and out, so you can easily spend a few hours of the day here.

After taking in the castle why not take in its surroundings? Start off at Castlehill before moving down to the gardens in the shadow of the castle. Even on a drizzly Scottish day the Princes Street Gardens are well worth a stroll through. With views up to Edinburgh Castle and the shopping streets to the side, the gardens are like a little piece of tranquillity in the busy life of the city.

There are also numerous statues and monuments throughout the gardens, as well as a beautiful old bandstand, to discover a little more about Edinburgh’s history as well.

From here head to the north and into the shopping areas for lunch, or in our case, another afternoon tea, at The Dome. I kid you not, this place is stunning inside. Even if you just pop in for a drink at the cocktail bar, (which you definitely should), this place is so much more than the outside leads you to believe!

Spend the rest of the day wandering George Street, Charlotte Square, and Princes Street. In between cafe hopping and exploring more monuments and statues, we also set about finding our family tartan, something you should definitely do when in Scotland. Turns out Tedaldi isn’t such a well-known Scottish clan, (I wonder why!).

Dinner tonight has to be at Contini George Street. The building is incredible, the interior is stunning, and the food is to die for! The portions are also rather big, so you won’t go away feeling hungry, just full of flavourful Italian grub, perfect after another walk filled day exploring Edinburgh.

Planning your own trip to Edinburgh? Make sure you check out our Travelling Tedaldi Amazon Store Travel Guides for all your guidebooks and maps. (We’ve done the hard work for you and linked all the things we used to plan our trip!)

Optional Day – Day 3: Calton Hill & Scottish National Portrait Gallery

If like us, you have a flight to catch but not until the afternoon then be sure to follow this optional day 3.

Get up bright and early today for sunrise at Calton Hill, (even if it hasn’t stopped raining, the views from up here are wonderful). Your first stop of the day on route there should be Twelve Triangles for a morning coffee and to grab some of the best pastries sold in the city. We saved ours for when we got to the top of Calton Hill as a reward but man we wished we had bought more than one each, they are to die for!

You then want to head up Calton Hill via the Royal Terrace path, which slowly winds up to the peak and the National Monument of Scotland. It’s a short but steep walk up the hill to get what can only be described as the best seats in the city, and with numerous monuments to visit whilst up there, including the Nelson Monument, Dugald Stewart Monument, and the Playfair Monument, it’s a no brainer, you have to visit.

After taking in the views, you want to head back down to the city centre to the west of the hill via Calton Steps and Calton Road. There’s plenty of opportunity to get your retail therapy fix here or, like we did, head to a museum or gallery. As it was another rather drizzly day we opted to add the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to our Edinburgh itinerary.

Not only is the art within the gallery beautiful, but the building itself is too. You could easily spend all day here learning about the story of Scotland and her people with historical figures and modern-day pioneers. After getting your art fix, it’s time to head home, so back to the airport tram and on to the airport, or onward via public transport or car.

Where to stay in Edinburgh

Whilst in Edinburgh we stayed in an AirBnB on Montgomery Street. The location was perfect, not too far away that it seemed like a trek to get to anything, but far enough away that you still get some peace and quiet during the night! You could opt for a much more centralised accommodation, but you may have to pay quite a bit more…

2 Days In Edinburgh FAQs

How to get to Edinburgh

By air – Travel to Edinburgh Airport then take either a taxi or the airport tram into the centre, simple as that!

By train – Get the train to Edinburgh Waverley railway station, bringing you directly to the heart of Edinburgh.

By car – From London, (and anywhere south of Edinburgh), take the M6 or M1 north and it takes around 8 hours. You can always make the most of it and stop off in a few places along the way, including the Lake District.

How to get around Edinburgh

The easiest way to get around Edinburgh is on foot. (It’s also the easiest way to find quaint cafes / bakeries that only the locals would know about…). It can get a bit hilly around Edinburgh though so if you need to rest your weary legs then there is public transport aplenty!

How many days is ideal for Edinburgh?

For the first timers in Edinburgh, 3/4 days is easily enough to get your head around the city and really start to fall in love with it. The cobbled roads, spires on every building, and green escapes in the heart of the city centre.

What is the best time of year to visit Edinburgh?

We visited in the early summer, although you would not have guessed that from the weather! The weather in the UK is generally a bit hit and miss year-round anyway but you do really have to be prepared for any weather in Scotland! Spring and Autumn will be lovely in Edinburgh, with the parks all in bloom or prime leaf peeping on offer. Winter can be just as magical with the chance of snow and the famous Hogmanay over the new year.

Where to eat in Edinburgh

There are numerous fantastic options for food in Edinburgh, and there are quite a few spots with incredible views too. We definitely spent a lot of our 2 days in Edinburgh eating our way around the city, so here are the top place to eat.

📍 Scotts Kitchen, Victoria Street – Breakfast

📍 Twelve Triangles – Breakfast

📍 Contini Cannonball – Afternoon tea or dinner

📍 The Dome – Lunch or evening drinks

📍 Contini George Street – Dinner

Visiting Edinburgh from London

To get to Edinburgh from London you have two options; 1. Fly which takes roughly 1 hour 20 minutes, or 2. Take the train, which takes anywhere from 4 hours 20 minutes. If you want to really make a journey of your journey then you can also take the Caledonian Sleeper train from London Euston to Edinburgh, which leaves London at 10pm arriving in Scotland by 8am the next day.

Is 2 days enough for Edinburgh?

Honestly. 2 days in Edinburgh is not enough to really see what this wonderful city is all about. It is a great starting point, and perfect for a weekend get away, but if you really want to get to the heart of the capital then you will need at least 4 days.

Tours in Edinburgh

Using Edinburgh as a stopover on the way elsewhere in Scotland or northern England? Then be sure to head to the Lake District if you are going south, or out along the North Coast 500 and various national parks around Scotland if going north.

If you are after a tour in and around Edinburgh and the neighbouring areas of Scotland then check out these tours from Get Your Guide:

Conclusion: How To Spend 2 Days In Edinburgh

And there you have it, our guide on how to spend 2 days in Edinburgh, perfect for a quick stay and exploration of this wonderful Scottish city. There are so many more locations throughout Edinburgh that we wanted to visit, (we’re talking Dean Village, Holyrood Park and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art), but with such a short amount of time, we had to opt for the sights we just couldn’t miss. We will just have to go back and see the ones we missed on another Edinburgh itinerary.

Gemma Tedaldi

Gemma is the owner and author of The Travelling Tedaldi, a travel blog helping travellers to discover the best road trips and travel itineraries throughout the UK and Europe. When she isn’t writing about her favourite travel destinations, she can often be found out exploring local hikes or planning future trips.