Edinburgh - Dark History
Recommended by 100% of travelers
Badge of Excellence
Edinburgh, Scotland
- 2 hours (approx.)
- Mobile ticket
- Offered in: English
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Overview
What's Included
- In-Person guide
Meeting and Pickup
Meeting point
- Statue of Walter Francis Montagu Douglas ScottQueensberry Memorial to Walter Scott, W Parliament Sq, Edinburgh EH1 1RN, UK
Our meeting point is in WEST Parliament Square, across the square in Front of St. Giles Cathedral. Search for the white umbrella with the logo of All-Star Guides.
End point
- Canongate Kirk153 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8BN, UK
Itinerary
Old Town (Pass By)
1
Heart of Midlothian
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
2
St Giles' Cathedral
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
3
Mercat Cross
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
4
Royal Mile
40 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
5
John Knox House Museum
5 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
6
Canongate Kirk
40 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
Additional Info
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
- Wheelchair accessible
- Stroller accessible
- Service animals allowed
- Near public transportation
- Transportation is wheelchair accessible
- Surfaces are wheelchair accessible
- Most travelers can participate
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 30 travelers
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Cancellation Policy
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Traveler Photos
Reviews
5,0
based on 916 reviews
Sort by: Most recent
We had a fantastic experience on the Edinburgh dark history tour, bringing the city’s dark and fascinating past to life through captivating stories and historical insights. Everything was explained in an interesting and entertaining way, making the tour both informative and memorable. We thoroughly enjoyed. Highly recommended for anyone visiting the city!”
This was a great tour. Perfectly timed, to the minute - 1 hr 30 min. Our guide was engaging enough to keep my 11 yo daughter fully engaged and recalling stories for the rest of the night. If that's not telling enough, I don't know what is!
I think Callum may be a walking Wikipedia, he seemed to have an answer to every question and gave us great detail about all the macabre bits of the Royal Mile. Great tour and value, definitely recommend.
Toni is incredible, just a smart, engaging, kind person. I would take any of her tours. A good way to think about this tour is as the people’s history tour of Edinburgh, which, frankly, is pretty dark. Would recommend for every visitor to Edinburgh.
All I can say was that I learned a lot about the history that probably goes unreported in some textbooks! Tori was a great guide as well!
Very lively, interesting and entertaining tour with knowledgeable guide (thanks Robert!). If macabre side facts, the scary living beings of Edinburgh and doing justice to the story of some of the poor souls are your thing - the tour ist perfect for you.
We had a fantastic tour with Toni. She was friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and a great storyteller. We learned so much history while being entertained in the process. Wonderful! Can’t recommend Toni or this tour enough! 👍👍
Lots of walking, kinda dragged on. Interesting but didn’t need to be that long. The guide was nice and knowledgeable
Lydia was excellent! Very knowledgeable and answered lots of our questions and mixed it up for us as we had been to some of the planned stops which kept it interesting.
Amelie, our guide, was very knowledgeable. Full of energy, she made this experience one to remember.
Amalie was our tour guide. She was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Enjoyed the tour a lot and I would highly recommend this tour for something different and dark!
We had a great time! David is a wonderful storyteller, and we left the tour more well informed and inspired to visit the national museum to see some of the artefacts he told us about. This is not a ghost tour with made up stories, but the actual dark history of Edinburgh, which to us was much more interesting.
Our guide, David, was highly knowledgeable and entertaining with some deep, dark facts on Edinburgh. Highly recommended!
My boyfriend and I did the dark history tour with Kieran and had an absolute blast! He did a fantastic job of telling us some truly dark stories about Edinburgh that you definitely don’t hear from the other tour guides (and for good reason!). You can tell he has a passion for history and telling stories. We have an interest in the macabre and this tour satisfies that. We found it engaging and fascinating. Our only complaint was how fast it went by! We loved every moment of it and have already recommended it to others!
This dark history tour was very informative and interesting. I recommend this tour at the beginning of your stay so that you can learn about the history of Edinburgh before exploring the town.
Robert was a friendly, personable and extremely knowledgeable guide. Would highly recommend this tour, a great (re)introduction to a city of such fascinating and brutal history!
The tour was very nice! David was very personable and knowledgeable about the area and its dark history. He was attentive and tried to place us in spots with the most amount of shelter from the wind! This is not a ghost tour so if you want to hear about the darker sides of Edinburgh, give this a go! It was a very enjoyable experience overall.
Great tour! Our tour guide, Irish Mark, was awesome! Learned a lot about Scottish history. Would highly recommend.
This was a very enjoyable two hours with Jack which my partner thoroughly enjoyed as she is retired medical professional! The seamier side of Edinburgh's history was very well presented, including what happens with those, 'nasty' inconveniences of existence in a city, as well as the fateful occurrences that befell some prominent citizens and some less prominent as well. Great fun!
Fantastic tour of the Old Town led by a very knowledgeable and talented guide, Lydia. She kept the tour interesting throughout its duration and tailored it to our interests.
This was a great walking tour of Edinburgh in the Royal Mile area, and i would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the “dark history” of the city. It is not a ghost tour, or not like other tours where they dress up in costumes - it’s enlightening, informing and the guides are great story tellers. From hearing about the witch trials to the history of the closes and more, as a travel agent, i strongly suggest this tour! It is also historian led company and is a local small company, a great way to support smaller businesses in comparison to some of the bigger touring companies found in the same area.
Jack was very knowledgeable and provided an interesting and well curated overview of some key locations of historical significance around the core of Edinburgh. It was a fairly reasonable (edging or short) walk, which was appreciated as tourist who have done a lot of walking over the course of the day. Our group would highly recommend this tour, and Jack as a thoughtful and effective guide!
Great tour. Our guide Lidia was very knowledgable and meant for story telling. She loves the city and knew the right spots to take us.
We had a very good tour with Kieran. He is knowledgeable and was quick to respond to our questions. He kept it entertaining for the full 2 hours.
Learnt so much on this tour. Was a lovely experience and made our holiday. Joe was very good, the way he told the stories was engaging. If you love history, this is perfect! We had the best time and would recommend to anyone! Thank you!
Absolutely wonderful, we were in a smallish group which for us was even better. Our guide was James, a very knowledgeable guy, none of the silly histrionics of other tours, just excellent history and facts about the dark side of Edinburgh’s history.
Highly recommended
Very interesting and our guide is very knowledgeable
We do not get the general idea of different places in the city; just dark histories but it is interesting. What was amazing is the knowlodge of our guide!
Very nice tour that tells you about the history of the city particularly the troublesome and gruesome stories of various people and events. Lydia was a wonderful guide.
This tour was so good! Informative and engaging. Joe was such a a great storyteller and was so knowledgeable that we enjoyed every bit . I, and my whole family would highly recommend this tour.
Our guide was Robert (not Ferguson, although we learnt a lot about him) and he was amazing! Really knowledgeable and genuinely passionate about the history of Edinburgh. This was a varied and entertaining tour that kept us interested throughout. Our teenagers loved it too and the pace was just right. Not gimmicky at all - we thought it was excellent value and felt it was a highlight of our few days in Edinburgh.
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From
US$23,03
per personWas US$24,24(-5%)
up to 24 hours before the experience starts (local time)
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Edinburgh - Dark History
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