Fodor's Expert Review Castlehill

This street, the upper portion of the Royal Mile, was where alleged witches were brought in the 16th century to be burned at the stake. The cannonball embedded in the west gable of Castlehill's Cannonball Restaurant was, according to legend, fired from the castle during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie (1720–88)—though the truth is probably that it was installed there deliberately in 1681 as a height marker for Edinburgh's first piped water-supply system. Atop the Gothic Tolbooth Kirk, built in 1844 for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, stands the tallest spire in the city, at 240 feet. The church now houses the cheery Edinburgh Festival offices and a pleasant café known as the Hub.