just walk up to the Hill. The entrance is not obvious

At the edge between the Old and New Town.

We stayed at Holiday Inn Express at EDI center. When asked the front desk how to get to Edinburgh Castle, they said we would get a much better view of the town from the top of Calton Hill - the entrance of the path going up is like 3 minutes walk from the hotel.

100% agree with the staff at HIX - the view up there is terrific. Better, there were very few people up there - mostly locals to take a break - hardly any tourists like you see on the Royal Mile.

Dont know, may be we should have visited Scotland long long time ago before we went to other parts of Europe. It is like, you have seen the bests of the bests, then come back to see something haven't seen before, but always wanted to. Then sadly, those you heard so much about, are really no comparison to what you have already seen. I dont know if you understand it.

Sometimes, travel too much has its drawbacks.