For a compelling trip around Edinburgh follow the Edinburgh Literary Bus Tour

Rosemary Goring (Part 1)

Every summer, the worry lines on Edinburgh faces are etched a millimetre deeper as the centre of the city grows harder and harder to negotiate. Taking the car is lunacy at this time of year,but even on foot one needs the dexterity of a break-dancer to side-step pulsing hordes of tourists who always seem to travel with enough luggage to clothe everyone they left at home.

The worst street of all is Waverley Bridge, where the congestion is focused on the string of tour buses that suck up bypassers faster than a Dyson traps dust. No matter how many are removed,however, the kerbside is in a state of perpetual gyration with ticket touts,drivers, sightseers and locals drawn into a cacophonous tango that epitomises all that is most aggravating about the capital’s high season. And yet,in the midst of this maelstrom lies a magic bus:a haven of tranquility,an oasis of intellectual nourishment – well,as near as you’ll get under these circumstances anyway. It took only the short flight of steps from the pavement to the top deck to transform me from Mrs Danvers to Mma Ramotswe.

This was a book bus, offering a guide to the literary history,long past and recent,of the capital’s centre. As it set off under the bluest of Scottish skies, the actor-guide began an hour-long commentary that combined facts with recitation and the occasional fly aside. Obliged to follow Lothian Council’s tourist bus route,it nevertheless managed to capture the character of the city and its illustrious blows to a body of literature literary forbears, whether it was the tragic story of poet Robert Fergusson, whose poem to the transitory attractions of a prostitute was a vivid reminder of the Canongate’s visceral past,or the pungent views of Sydney Goodsir Smith.

Rosemary Goring (Part 2)

In between were Isabella Bird’s shocking descriptions of the Old Town’s slums – “aden swarming with vermin” –bookseller James Thin on Thomas DeQuincey, “a nervous, shrivelled, meagre little man who skulked around after nightfall as if he could not stand the light of day” – and Ian Rankin’s Rebus, summoning a journalist lackey: “I want to see you. Oxford Bar. Now.” Part of the pleasure of the trip was seeing a familiar city through unweary eyes. There’d have been no enjoyment, though, had this not been such a well-thought-out excursion, executed with professional panache.

What is extraordinary is that this is the first-ever such tour of Edinburgh. It’s only a pilot scheme, run by the Scottish Literary Tour Trust, the company that offers popular literary pub tours. Next year director Maurice Paton hopes to make adjustments to the script,and possibly the route. Given that buses and their miked-up operators have trundled through the city centre for years,and that a trio of Edinburgh writers –J K Rowling, Alexander McCall Smith and Ian Rankin – dominate the UK and international bestseller lists,it’s strange that no-one before now has attempted to offer visitors and residents a wheel-borne slice of literary heritage.

Now that Edinburgh is a Unesco World City of Literature, this is a perfect adjunct to its ambitions: how better to introduce people entertainingly and effortlessly to the capital’s literary landscape? So far,I’m told there has been no support for this new venture from the world city of literature. Everyone else, however, should climb on board at once.