2 Best Sights in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Scotland

This sprawling, hillside graveyard, surely one of the most evocative in Europe (particularly at twilight), is a giddy mess of old, tottering tombstones that mark the graves of some of Scotland's most respected heroes and despised villains. Many of these inspired character names in the Harry Potter book series; fans can seek out Potters, McGonagalls, and Moodies, to name a few. Among the larger tombs arranged in avenues and the seemingly random assortment of grave markers, lie two rare surviving mortsafes: iron cages erected around graves in the early 1800s to prevent the theft of corpses for sale to medical schools.

At the southern end of the graveyard stands Greyfriars Kirk, the 400-year-old church where the National Covenant—a document declaring the Presbyterian Church in Scotland independent of the monarchy, and so plunging Scotland into decades of civil war—was signed in 1638. Nearby, at the corner of George IV Bridge and Candlemaker Row, stands one of Scotland's most photographed sites: the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye terrier who supposedly spent 14 years guarding the grave of his departed owner.

This unadorned Church of Scotland building, built in 1688, is best known for its graveyard. It is the final resting place of several notable Scots, including economist Adam Smith (1723–90), author of The Wealth of Nations (1776); Dugald Stewart (1753–1828), the leading European philosopher of his time; and the undervalued Scottish poet Robert Fergusson (1750–74). The fact that Fergusson's grave is even distinguishable is due to the far more famous Robert Burns (1759–96), who commissioned a marker to be made. Incidentally, Robert Burns's literary lover Agnes Maclehose (the "Clarinda" to his "Sylvander" as noted in a series of passionate letters) also has a memorial stone here.