Travel: Edinburgh – from a magical castle to a boy wizard

All children, except two, grow up.

Scottish novelist J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan heads the list of usual suspects. Cerebrally, I’m a close second, invested by childhood memories of an Edinburgh with a colossal castle perched on a 350-million-year-old volcanic plug right in the city centre that was as intriguing as any in a fairy tale, an Edinburgh where breakfasts were redolent with the rich aromas and exotic textures of kippers and oatcakes, and an Edinburgh whose natives addressed me as “wee laddie” – something of a challenge for a six-year-old rather proud of his height.

It’s said to be a mistake to revisit old haunts, but the second I emerge from Waverley station – just west of the castle – I’m not so much on Princes Street as Memory Lane. Never mind the touristic knick knacks festooning the shopfronts, this is the border of New Town – new since the late 1700s – a glorious extravaganza of neo-classical and Georgian architecture interspersed with squares and gardens that’s generally regarded as a tour de force of city planning, and all put together by a precociously talented 26-year-old called James Craig. Here’s Scotland’s National Gallery, Royal Academy and the National Portrait Gallery, as well as the 61-metre-high Victorian Gothic monument to not-very-much-read nowadays Sir Walter Scott, and the Scottish baronial Balmoral Hotel, where very-much-read-nowadays J.K. Rowling holed up to escape a ravenous public and put the finishing touches to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Indeed, the boy wizard counts as one of the Scottish capital’s prime attractions. Every Sunday afternoon, the pavement beside the memorial to Greyfriars Bobby – the 19th-century Skye Terrier who stood sentinel over his master’s grave for 14 years – fills with an eager crowd of fans set to embark upon a free (you read that right) tour. I find myself rubbing shoulders with a demographic wide enough to gladden any pollster’s heart: grandchildren with grandparents in tow, a brace of 20-some­things rather too eager to show off their Potter tattoos, a Dutch economist who provides a simultaneous translation for his girlfriend, and some slightly intense types who’d probably resent being classed as Muggles. Few nooks and crannies are left unexplored, from the gravestone that’s linked to Lord Voldemort, to Edinburgh University, where some brave soul is apparently working on a PhD linking the Potter oeuvre to actual locations in the city.