Grassmarket

The Grassmarket is a wide, cobbled rectangle lying directly beneath the craggy, vertical rock face of Edinburgh Castle. You can identify it by the way the immense stone walls of the fortress tower nearly one hundred meters above the square, creating a stark backdrop for the surrounding traditional tenements and low-rise buildings. Since at least fourteen seventy-seven, this valley floor has functioned as a central market, where farmers once kept livestock in pens at the western end, giving the area its name.