Edinburgh live — the city built on volcanoes, shaped by ice and defined by ideas

Edinburgh's physical character is unlike any other capital city in Europe: it is built on the remnants of a volcanic landscape shaped by 350 million years of geology and then carved by glaciation, leaving a series of dramatic rocky outcrops — Castle Rock, Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill, Craiglockhart Hill — rising from a city that would otherwise occupy a flat coastal plain. The result is a skyline of extraordinary drama, where an 11th-century castle sits on a sheer volcanic basalt plug 80 metres above the street, and a 251-metre extinct volcano stands within the city boundaries as a public park. No planning committee created this. It was geology.

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, recognised as such since at least the 15th century and the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament, the highest courts in Scotland and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland. Its historic centre — both the medieval Old Town along the Royal Mile and the Georgian New Town planned from 1767 — was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. The Old Town became home to some of the earliest high-rise residential buildings in the world: multi-storey dwellings known as "lands" with ten and eleven storeys being typical, one even reaching fourteen or fifteen storeys — a consequence of being constrained on a narrow volcanic ridge with nowhere to go but up, three centuries before the steel-frame skyscraper was invented in Chicago.

What the 4 sources show

Edinburgh beyond the cameras

The Royal Mile is — despite its name — 1.13 miles long (not one mile) and runs from Edinburgh Castle at the top of the volcanic ridge to the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom, passing St Giles' Cathedral (with its distinctive crown steeple), the City Chambers, John Knox's House and dozens of closes and wynds that cut off the main spine into the hidden layers of the Old Town. During August, 300,000 pedestrians walk the Royal Mile each week during peak tourist season. In February, it's yours alone in the rain.

Greyfriars Kirkyard, the 16th-century churchyard below the castle, contains the grave of Greyfriars Bobby — a Skye Terrier who reportedly guarded his owner's grave for 14 years after his death in 1858, becoming one of the most famous animals in Scottish history and subsequently a children's book, a Disney film and a small bronze statue outside the churchyard gates. The same churchyard contains the tomb of Bloody MacKenzie, a Restoration-era Lord Advocate known for persecuting Scottish Covenanters; his ghost is reputed to be the most physically interactive in Scotland, reportedly punching visitors in Greyfriars since the 1990s. These two facts describe Greyfriars Kirkyard's character adequately.

The Balmoral Hotel clock tower on Princes Street has run three minutes fast since it opened in 1902, on the theory that train passengers who checked the time against it would catch their trains at Waverley Station directly below. Waverley Station is the only train station in the world named after a novel — Walter Scott's Waverley (1814), the first historical novel in English literature. The clock is reset to the correct time precisely once a year: at midnight on 31 December, for Hogmanay.

When to watch

August (Fringe): The Castle Rock camera in August is the most sociologically interesting month-long observation available in this series. Watch the same camera in the first week of August and the last week of July — the difference between a city of 500,000 and a city of one million, visible in the density of the street traffic, the temporary signage on every surface and the Saltire flags that appear on every possible flagpole.

Hogmanay (31 December): Edinburgh's Hogmanay is Scotland's New Year celebration — the street party on Princes Street is one of the largest in the world, with torchlit processions up the Royal Mile, a concert in Princes Street Gardens and fireworks launched from the castle. The Castle Rock camera at midnight on 31 December is the best single image in the Scottish calendar year.

Dawn on Arthur's Seat: The SkylineWebcams Arthur's Seat feed at sunrise catches the sun coming over the Firth of Forth to the east and hitting the castle walls — the same light that the painters of the Edinburgh school tried to capture in the 19th century. In winter, snow on Arthur's Seat with the Old Town below is a composition that takes professional photographers to Edinburgh specifically. The camera gets it for free.

Getting there: Edinburgh Airport (EDI) is 12 km west of the city — the tram (opened 2014) runs directly to the city centre in 30 minutes for £9.50. The journey to Waverley Station by bus takes 40 minutes. Edinburgh Waverley is served by LNER trains from London King's Cross (4h30), Avanti West Coast from Glasgow (50 min) and ScotRail from Glasgow Queen Street (45 min). The Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, Greyfriars and the National Museum of Scotland are all within 600m of each other on foot. Edinburgh's compact size means a serious two-day visit can reach all webcam locations plus the main cultural sites.