There are guided tours of the inside of the buildings and there’s also a leaflet allowing people to take a self-guided Tour of the exterior. Some of the features left me baffled at times, particularly the large, thick sticks that covered some of the windows, and the odd-shaped window designs, supposedly inspired by the silhouette of the figure in the painting Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, by Henry Raeburn, one of Scotland’s most famous painters.

To the south the view is of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags where energetic lunch-time athletes go running. Between the Parliament and the crags is Our Dynamic Earth, a visitor attraction that tells the story of planet Earth and how our world works, how life has evolved and the future challenges faced by the planet. The attraction, whose exterior roof looks not unlike a miniature version of the Millennium Dome in London – was built as a celebration of the life of James Hutton, the father of Modern Geology who studied and worked in this area of Edinburgh throughout the Scottish Enlightenment. Hutton was friends with numerous first-class minds in the sciences including John Playfair, philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith.