55.9°N

EEdinburgh is built on old volcanoes and the sea. The day starts at Leith, the city's port on the Firth of Forth, where sandstone warehouses still line the quay of the Water of Leith.

Calton Hill stands above the end of Princes Street. Its National Monument, begun in the 1820s to copy the Parthenon, was left with twelve columns when the money ran out.

Across the valley, Arthur's Seat rises out of Holyrood Park: the remains of a volcano, with the long cliff of Salisbury Crags at its side.

By the time the Old Town lamps come on, the sun has long gone. In late October it never climbs higher than about twenty degrees.