Perhaps the most famous book set in Edinburgh is Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," inspired by an upstanding citizen who secretly lived a lowdown life. More recently, Irvine Welsh's "Trainspotting" was Mr. Hyde all the way.

My favorite Edinburgh book is Muriel Spark's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," and my mom's is anything from Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series.

The closest we got to the latter was the Oxford Bar, famous for being a Rankin favorite. Even though the pub, on a quiet street in the New Town, is on the tourist trail, the bartender and the locals couldn't have been friendlier.

The closest we got to the former was a 10-minute walk to the Old Town, and an inscription in the concrete outside the Writers' Museum that read, "The transfiguration of the commonplace. Muriel Spark." Right on, Ms. Spark.

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The museum, in a pretty little close off the Royal Mile not far from Edinburgh Castle, honors three of Scotland's most famous writers: Stevenson, Walter Scott and Robert Burns. Even though I'm still haunted by the memory of standing in front of my primary school class and trying to recite a poem in the local vernacular (a thing of beauty in a Scottish accent, a thing of comedy in an American one), I'm a fan of Burns' deeply human insights.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

One night in Edinburgh, my oldest friend came to visit. He had witnessed my mangling of the Scottish poem all those decades ago but somehow didn't hold it against me. One of the highlights of the trip was seeing his reaction to the stupendous views from the place we had rented. He went from window to window (and there were many), taking snaps on his smartphone.

The Old Observatory House, recently restored by a building preservation group called the Vivat Trust, sits atop Calton Hill, which has probably the best vantage point in the city. The views are 360 degrees: of the castle, the extinct volcano known as Arthur's Seat, the Firth of Forth and the truly odd assortment of memorials and buildings on the hill itself, including a half-built acropolis.

The Gothic-style house looked like a mini-castle and had a touch of Downton Abbey to it — right down to the service bells above the kitchen door. (Sadly, the bells are silent and no longer summon a Carson or Mrs. Hughes.) It doesn't come cheap, at about $300 a night, but it sleeps eight, and it would be a dreamy place for a gathering of family or friends.

