Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is well known for having great views, shops and restaurants, not to mention historic sites like Robert Knox’s House, Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood House. But far beneath the City Chambers building on the High Street is a world long-since abandoned. Across the street from St. Giles’ Cathedral is a small entrance to The …
Scotland has nearly 800 islands, many of which are uninhabited. The islands are divided into main groupings, which include the Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, the Firth of Clyde, and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Of the inhabited islands, many are connected to the mainland by bridge, while others are accessible only by ferry or plane. …
Having lived in the ancient town of St Andrews for more than twelve months without once swinging a club, I assure you that its beaches, ruins, and cobbled streets offer far more than just the Old Course and hotel culture. After an hour’s travel north by bus, train, or rented car from Edinburgh, you’ll find …
The Fife Coastal Path is an 82-mi/132-km trail that runs along the southern and eastern coasts of Fife from North Queensferry (near Edinburgh) to Tayport (near Dundee). It takes approximately six days to walk the path in full. A small stretch of it, to which I became particularly attached during a yearlong residency in the …
The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, recently named Glasgow a UNESCO City of Music, as part of the Organization’s Creative Cities Network. It joins Bologona in Italy and Seville in Spain, as the only three European Cities of Music. Glasgow was chosen for very good reason; check-out some of the statistics: – in an average week, 127 …
When people think of Scotland, they likely think of bagpipes, whiskey, and castles. And, castles are a large part of the landscape in Scotland– from those offering sweeping vistas – to fortifications in city centers – to crumbling ruins in the highlands that have taken their former inhabitant’s secrets to the grave. Visiting castles should be a part …
The border between the United Kingdom’s two largest nations, England and Scotland, has been a contentious place for hundreds of years. It’s one of the world’s oldest borders, first established in partial form by the Treaty of York in 1237. Today, the area offers a number of interesting and unique areas for tourists to discover. Here …
Widely regarded as one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals, Edinburgh never ceases to astound the visitor with its beauty. Princes Street divides this city into two main areas, The Old Town and New Town, both with their own character and beauty. Choosing where to stay in Edinburgh is difficult because of the wealth of great …
In Celtic, Glasgow means “a dear green place” and that it is, although a bit less green since its naming. With a proud history as a shipbuilding, trade, and financial center, contemporary Glasgow is sleek and modern and its Manhattan-style town planning affords many sweeping vistas of the city’s impressive Victorian buildings, as well as …
Ten years ago, if one visited the quaint village of Roslin, a short bus ride out to the outskirts of Edinburgh, one could tour the local chapel by simply inquiring with the caretaker to obtain a key and letting yourself in. In 2003, Dan Brown published the DaVinci Code, and everything changed. Suddenly Roslin was …