Edinburgh for The Time Travellers: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

Enric Miralles's upturned boats and leaf-shaped debating chamber; the public galleries and the garden lobby are free when the chamber is not sitting.

A dram opposite the close where William Brodie, cabinetmaker and councillor by day and burglar by night, lived; Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde started here.

Dinner in a 1595 merchant's house at the castle gates, candlelit under painted ceilings and dark panelling; the right first night for old Edinburgh. Book well ahead.

Book the first slot: St Margaret's Chapel of about 1130, the Honours of Scotland in the Crown Room, and the one o'clock gun if you linger.

A ninety-minute walk through the closes with a guide who knows which stories are true; the plague, the tenements, and the Union signed in a cellar.

Dinner under the restored dome of the old Bank of Scotland head office, named for Basil Spence.

Twenty minutes by train to Dalmeny, then walk the 1964 road bridge between the 1890 cantilever and the 2017 Queensferry Crossing.

Clashach sandstone and concrete from 1998 beside the Victorian iron hall, with a roof terrace that frames the castle.

Oysters at the marble bar under Doulton tile murals of inventors, in a room unchanged since 1863; the stained glass shows sportsmen nobody remembers.

Hoskins Architects' 2023 extension dug into the Mound beneath Princes Street Gardens, with the Scottish collection lit from the park side.

A 1617 merchant's tenement with painted ceilings and an arcaded front, the last of the kind that once lined the Mile; the top floor was the cheap one.

Cardamom buns and open sandwiches in Foster and Partners' glass infill beside the old Royal Infirmary pavilions.