Live webcam on The Royal Mile, Edinburgh

The Royal Mile, scene of Edinburgh Festival

The Royal Mile is a succession of streets which form the main thoroughfare of the Old Town of the city of Edinburgh in Scotland.

As the name suggests, the Royal Mile is approximately one Scots mile long, and runs between two foci of history in Scotland, from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Castle Rock down to Holyrood Abbey. The streets which make up the Royal Mile are (west to east) Castle Esplanade, Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and Abbey Strand. The Royal Mile is Edinburgh Old Town's busiest tourist street, rivalled only by Princes Street in the New Town. During the annual Edinburgh Festival, the High Street becomes the city's central focus, and is crowded with tourists, entertainers and buskers. On the left is the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland's supreme criminal court. On the right, about one-third of the way down from the Castle toward the Palace is Parliament Square, named after the old Parliament House which housed both the law courts and the old Parliament of Scotland between the 1630s and 1707 (when it was adjourned by the Act of Union) Parliament House is now the home of the Court of Session, Scotland's supreme civil court. St Giles Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh, also stands in Parliament Square.