Hotels near Dean Village and the Dean Bridge

Dean Village sits in a gorge five minutes from the west end of Princes Street, and that abruptness is the appeal: you step off a Georgian street and land beside a river with the 1830s Dean Bridge 32 metres overhead. The buildings are former mill workers' housing from a grain-milling settlement that operated here for 800 years, and Well Court, built in 1884, is the photograph everyone takes. By mid-October the ivy on the gorge walls has turned wine red and leaves pile up on the weir.

Fifteen minutes downstream on the Water of Leith Walkway brings you to St Bernard's Well, a Roman-style temple built over a mineral spring in 1789, and then into Stockbridge, which holds the best independent shops and cafes in the north of the city. Stockbridge Market runs on Sunday mornings on Saunders Street.

Pro Tip: Come before 9am. Dean Village is a residential street rather than an attraction, and by mid-morning the lane at Well Court is crowded with photographers. Early light is also the only time the lower buildings are not sitting in shadow.