There is often a good exhibition on here and it is a pleasant gallery to view works within. It is a bit on the old side but if you like a bit of old fashioned interior then this might just be your cup of tea! It is also central, just behind Princes Street so it's no big effort to go and have a look.

The Scottish National Portrait gallery is a place that pays homage to both Scottish nationalism and painters. It is a jam-packed filled place that has numerous portraits of the Royal families, present and past, as well as Scottish heroes- like Robert Louis Stephenson. There is a nice blaconey level with lovely busts- some of the best I've seen- of Scottish forefathers- and interestingly some foremothers too. The hallways also have some interesting busts also. The feel of the place is baroque and ancestral- if you're into modern art- as I am- this is a bit cloying, and if you're claustrophobic steer clear. It has no clean lines, whatsoever, no space of which to stand back and get persepective. Weirdly, there are also 1970's era couches in the center of the rooms. They seem like inadvertant avant-garde art pieces in and of themselves. This will appeal to those who have a deep interest in Scottish history and traditional portraiture. It would be a good place to take a tradional elderly relative- this is an art gallery in the fashion that seems to have gone out of date. This is not the place for those not interested in those things- and who in fact, are glad that this particular style of art gallery died out in the eighties.