Narrow stone closes drop away from the Royal Mile, one of them the alley where Vision is stabbed in Avengers Infinity War.
What Old Town looks like
The Royal Mile runs along the ridge from the Castle down to Holyrood, with narrow closes and stepped wynds falling away on both sides. Tall stone tenements line the spine itself, six to ten storeys in places, with crow stepped gables and steeply pitched roofs breaking the skyline.
Fleshmarket Close drops in one flight of stone steps between blank tenement walls, barely wider than the steps themselves. and West Bow curve below the Mile in a single sweep, arched shopfronts painted in solid colour under the same grey sandstone tenements above.
Chessel's Court, off the , opens into a harled Georgian courtyard behind one arched entrance. Its dormer gables sit quiet against the traffic outside. Cobbles and worn stone setts cover most of the older lanes, and cast iron lamps still hang from brackets set into the stone at several close mouths.
The ground drops fast enough that a street can run under an archway formed by the building above it, with a second street continuing below at a different level. From the top of the Mile, St Giles' crown steeple and the spires beyond it break the roofline against the sky.
Shot in Old Town
Marvel used Fleshmarket Close and the City Chambers courtyard for two connected beats of one fight in Avengers Infinity War. Warner Bros. used Victoria Street and West Bow for stunt driving in Fast and Furious 9.
Avengers Infinity War and Fast & Furious 9
One production sent two characters over the rooftops between a close and a courtyard. The other closed the same curving street to cars for its own stunt work two years later.
Avengers: Infinity War, 2018
Vision is stabbed through the chest by Corvus Glaive on this close, then thrown out across at the bottom of the steps. A shop's own street sign is visible in the shot. Street View
Avengers: Infinity War, 2018
Wanda and Vision fly over the rooftops from Cockburn Street and land in this arcaded courtyard, where Proxima Midnight attacks them again. The statue of Alexander the Great on horseback is visible in the shot. Street View
Fast & Furious 9, 2021
Victoria Street and West Bow
The production closed Victoria Street and West Bow from 6am to 10pm for car chase and stunt sequences, part of a 19 day shoot that also used the High Street and Parliament Square. Cockburn Street carried the same shoot. Street View
The steep cobbled lanes and tall stone or rendered tenements give Malá Strana a similar scale and pitch to the Old Town's own closes, both built up over centuries on hilly ground. Look around the base of the castle steps for the closest match. Prague's roofs run to more colour and ornament than Edinburgh's plain grey stone, so a tight frame on a bare stone wall holds the match better than a wide one. Try searching steep cobbled lanes stone tenements now.
Old Quebec's stone walls and steep connecting stairs between an upper and lower town echo the way the Old Town drops from the Mile into its closes. Both were built for defence on a ridge above water. Quebec's roofs are steeper and often tin clad, so a frame that keeps to the walls and steps rather than the skyline holds the illusion longer. Try searching stone stairs upper lower town now.
The Shambles is narrow enough for a similar sense of enclosure to a close, buildings overhanging closely enough to shade the street below. The materials are the real difference, timber framing rather than stone. A close frame on the ground and the overhanging floors above keeps York's timber facades out of shot, since timber framing belongs to a different period than the stone here. Try searching narrow overhanging medieval street now.
