The National Gallery
The National Gallery Complex is one of Scotland’s top free visitor attractions and Edinburgh’s second most-visited attraction after the Castle. It is made up of three interconnected buildings, right in the heart of Edinburgh. The National Gallery of Scotland is home to a major part of Scotland’s sensational national collection of fine art; the Royal Scottish Academy Building (RSA) is one of Europe’s premier venues for international exhibitions; and the Weston Link, which lies beneath the two buildings, connects them together with areas for shopping, learning, eating and drinking.
For up to date information on collections, please visit http://www.nationalgalleries.org.
Admission: Free
Opening Hours: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and Dean Gallery
Home to Scotland’s outstanding national collection of modern and contemporary art, the modern art galleries include the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the nearby Dean Gallery.
Both Galleries are set in extensive parkland, where visitors can discover sculpture works by important artists like Ian Hamilton Finlay, Henry Moore, Rachel Whiteread and Barbara Hepworth. The lawn to the front of the Gallery of Modern Art was re-landscaped in 2002 to a design by Charles Jencks. This dramatic work, or ‘landform’, comprises a stepped, serpentine mound reflected in three crescent-shaped pools of water.
The collection of the Gallery of Modern Art ranges from the 1900s right up to the present day. Highlights include works by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, Picasso, Kirchner and Dix; a superb selection of paintings by Scottish artists such as Peploe, Fergusson, Gillies and Redpath; postwar work by Bacon, Freud, Davie, Hockney, Balthus and Lege, and more recent work by artists including Baselitz, Antony Gormley and Damian Hirst. The Dean Gallery shows special exhibitions and works from the Gallery’s internationally renowned Dada and Surrealist collection alongside pieces by Eduardo Paolozzi, including a full recreation of the artist’s studio. Both galleries include fantastic shops and cafés.
Admission: Free
Opening Hours: 10:00am - 5:00pm
Website: http://www.nationalgalleries.org/visit/page/2:118:4/
Camera Obscura & World of Illusions
Camera Obscura and World of Illusions - where seeing is not believing! Five great attractions in one visit. Welcome to Edinburgh's oldest visitor attraction, built beside Edinburgh Castle in 1853.
CAMERA OBSCURA: Come and see this amazing live moving panorama of the city. Spy on passers-by in the street below and pick them up in your hand! The Camera Obscura has now been delighting visitors for over 150 years!
ROOFTOP VIEWS: Perched high above the city, let the view take your breath away! 360° panoramas of Edinburgh with free telescopes, including our fantastic high-power Russian Navy telescope which gives close-up views of the city and far beyond.
MAGIC GALLERY: Catch your shadow, shake hands with your ghost and discover a new you in the morphing machine. Amazing optical illusions with endless hands-on fun! You'll be amazed at our giant kaleidoscopes, one of the world's biggest plasmadomes, giant lenses which let you see your friends in a whole new light, and the fishtank where you can walk on water!
LIGHT FANTASTIC: Enter a new dimension in the U.K.'s only permanent gallery dedicated to the science and art of holography. You'll watch entranced as these eerily realistic 3D pictures change, appear and disappear before your eyes!
EDINBURGH VISION: See Edinburgh in 3D from the 1850s to the present day and make sure you try our live city viewcams which you can control. Scan right around the city and zoom in and out on anything (or anyone!) that takes your fancy! Step inside our giant pinhole camera and you'll laugh as your friends appear upside-down!
Gift shop - amazing range of puzzles, holograms and other unusual gifts, postcards, guidebooks, and digital memory cards.
Admission: £7.95
Opening hours: 9:30am - 6:00pm
Website: http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/