4hotels.co.uk: Hogmanay To Hogwarts: It Is The Magic Of Edinburgh

Online, February 9, 2011 (Newswire.com) - If you need proof that the city of Edinburgh is a magical place, then just ask children's author JK Rowling, for it is here that Harry Potter was born - among the many cafes that line the medieval streets of The Old Town. As the story goes, the amazingly successful series of children's books were penned while Rowling's baby daughter slept in her buggy after falling asleep during their usual daily preamble around the city. Living on state benefits, Rowling, no doubt inspired by the dearth of listed buildings, the castle and its dungeon that surrounded her, pursued her dream of becoming a writer and then...SHAZAM...five years later became one of the wealthiest women in the world.

And if you're talking real illusionary magic, then look no further than the Camera Obscura, "where seeing is not believing"! This amazing curiosity is 175 years old and has become one of Edinburgh's main visitor attractions - which is easy to see why when you can spy on people in the streets below and pick them up in your hand as the camera gives you a live moving 360 degree panorama view of the city from the ramparts. The World of Illusions is also here with hundreds of puzzles, tricks, interactive games, and effects, optical illusions, and plenty of hands-on experiences to wow children and adults alike. It is also home to the U.K.'s only permanent gallery dedicated to the science and art of holography.

But magic imbues the Scottish capital in a number of other ways inspiring great works and feats of human achievement throughout the city's history. The fact that Edinburgh is built on a range of extinct volcanoes has its own allure of romanticism for starters, and then there's the historic invention of the telephone by Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell that transformed and gave expanse to the way people communicated with each other and which dramatically altered the course of man's evolution.

Culturally, the city is home to the world's largest arts festival - the Edinburgh Fringe - which has delighted millions of people from all over the globe for over 50 years and made household names of countless comedians and actors and their own unique brand of magical entertainment, and plays host to a number of other renowned art and literature events during 4 weeks of cultural celebrations.

Talking of celebrating, everyone knows the Scots have no equal. But when it comes to street parties - well the annual Hogmanay is the most famous, and magical of them all. Lasting 4 days and attended by 100,000 people from all over the world, it's a riot of music, fireworks and wonderful community spirit the likes of which exist nowhere else.

On the whole, as a city, Edinburgh has been described as "the inspiring capital of Scotland" with a richly magical architectural history that you can never grow tired of exploring, as evidenced in the medieval Old Town and its famous castle, and over 4,500 listed buildings. But there is also the New Town and its distinctive "grid design," built to ease the serious overcrowding of the Old Town, and which is remarkable for having been created in the mid 1770s by James Craig an architect who was just 22 years of age when he won the commission and initiated what was in effect the U.K.'s first major urban planning development. Set against a backdrop of volcanoes and rocky crags with sheltered shorelines to the north and the flat landscape of the Lothians all around the outskirts, there is without doubt something wonderfully mystical and magical about Edinburgh, http://www.4hotels.co.uk/uk/edinburgh.html

Indeed, as famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson once remarked, "Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be," which is saying something given we all know about the magic of that famous city!