DUNBAR

 The little  east-coast town of Dunbar boasts Scotland's best sunshine records - as long as the haar (sea mist) stays offshore. A small resort that grew from a port, evidence of its early prosperity can be seen in elegant, handsome Georgian town houses. Dunbar was also a strategic place of defense, overlooking the main coastal route to Edinburgh. The shattered fragments of the town's castle - now home to nesting kittiwakes - still perch above the harbor. With a plenty of atmosphere and historic places of interest, Dunbar also makes a good excursion from Edinburgh, taking in North Berwick, another attractive little coastal resort, along the way.

 The East Beach, off Town Centre, Dunbar

 

A slightly faded but still attractive resort with some fine Georgian architecture, Dunbar shows its layers of history in its fragmentary castle, its two harbors (the first associated with Oliver Cromwell) and its handsome 17th-century town house with steeple.

ELGIN

 Elgin is the largest town in the district of Moray, a commercial and administrative center serving the whisky country around the Spey River, and the personnel of the nearby air bases. It has been rebuilt many times over the centuries. However, its original central street, now filled with a large church (the "muckle kirk"), as well as the series of alleyways leading off, can still be made out. Look, too, for the arcading dating from the 18th century, which still fronts a few stores. With its cobbled marketplace and crooked lanes, the popular town of Elgin still retains much of its medieval layout. The 13th-century cathedral ruins are all that remain of one of Scotland’s architectural triumphs. "The Lantern of the North", as it was known, was founded in 1224 and burned down in 1390.

 

 Elgin, High Street

MELROSE

 Though not a large place, Melrose packs a lot of interest and has a great choice of eating places and accommodations as a bonus. Its most conspicuous feature is its handsome abbey, originally founded in 1136. Amid the ruins, some lavish ornamentation still survives: carved into the walls are fruit and foliage and numerous little figures, even a pig playing the bagpipes high on the walls. It is worth taking the time to have a look around. Melrose Motor Museum and Priorwood Gardens, next door to the abbey, are two other attractions.

VIEW FROM THE EAST * THE SQUARE

GENERAL VIEW * LOWOOD BRIDGE AND RIVER TWEED

The town is overlooked by the three-peaked silhouette of the Eildon Hills. This distinctive landmark was chosen by the Romans as a navigating aid. In the surrounding countryside are other features well worth including on any tour.

ABERDEEN

 No other Scottish city is like Aberdeen, with its remarkable granite character. Bold blocks of gray granite buildings, silver when the sun shines, lend distinction to this northern place. Granite may be austere, but the city is softened by an emphasis on flowers. Aberdeen is also the oil capital of Britain. It offers a good range of places to see within the old core of the city and makes a good base for exploring the hinterland with its castles, coastline, whisky distilleries and royal connections. 

The Promenade and Beach

Downtown Aberdeen's main street is Union Street, with the oldest part of the city at the sea end, known as the Castlegate. Down towards the harbor, Aberdeen's Maritime Museum on the Shiprow is housed within Provost  Ross's House of 1593. Aberdeen's name turns up in the song The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen. However, downtown Aberdeen is not the place to see this night sky phenomenon. 

VisitAberdeenshire

ORKNEY

The green isles of Orkney have a Viking heritage and more prehistoric sites than anywhere else in Britain. The main town, Kirkwall, has a number of fine buildings. Orkney also has spectacular bird and seal colonies, plus a more recent heritage as a watering station for polar expeditions and as a naval base - Scapa Flow. On tiny Lambholm is the remarkable Italian Chapel built by Italian POW during World War II out of scrap material.
The Italian Chapel consists of two Nissen huts transformed into a beautiful chapel by Domenico Chiocchetti and his colleagues, Italian prisoners of war captured in North Africa and transported to the Island of Lamb Holm in Orkney. It is one of Orkney's most loved attractions, with over 100,000 visitors every year.

 

The Italian Chapel, Lamb Holm, Orkney

 

 Received from Roman

THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

Once considered wild and remote, the Scottish Highlands are now valued by today's visitors for their majestic landscapes and their solitude. The Highlands are a state of mind as well as a geographical reality. The North was seen as a primitive wilderness populated by savages. With the advent of the cult of the picturesque travellers began to view the Highlands as romantic and heroic, ideal and unspoilt. Most of the stock images of Scottishness – clans and tartans, whisky and porridge, bagpipes and heather – originate in the Highlands, and enrich the popular picture of Scotland as a whole.

 EILEAN DONAN CASTLE, LOCH DUICH

Eilean Donan is recognised as one of the most iconic images of Scotland all over the world. Situated on an island at the point where three great sea lochs meet, and surrounded by some majestic scenery, it is little wonder that the castle is now one of the most visited and important attractions in the Scottish Highlands.

Received from Thomas Goatherd

KELPIES

The Kelpies are located within “the Helix” park, Falkirk, situated between Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland. The Kelpies are one of the largest equine sculptures in the world, standing 30 metres tall. They are the landmark feature of The Helix Environmental Regeneration Scheme on the Forth and Clyde Canal near Falkirk on Central Scotland. They are the brain-child of sculptor Andy Scott, and will be the largest public artworks in Scotland. Construction of The Kelpies began on 17thJune 2013. The build was officially completed on 27th November 2013.

 

The Kelpies by numbers:

*300 tonnes each
*30 metres high
*1200 tonnes of steel-reinforced concrete foundations per head
*990 unique stainless steel skin-plates
*Built on site in 90 days.
For more information go to www.thekelpies.co.uk

GREAT BRITAIN

This is the name of the island which is made up of England, Scotland and Wales. The origin of the word 'Great' is a reference to size, because in many European languages the word for Britain and Brittany in France are the same. In fact, it was the French who first talked about Grande Bretagne! In everyday speech 'Britain' is used to mean United Kingdom.
The flag of the United Kingdom, known as the Union Jack, is made up of three crosses. The upright red cross is the cross of St George, the patron saint of England. The white diagonal cross is the cross of St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. The red diagonal cross is the cross of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

England is a land of scenic mountains, as well as great urban sprawls and congested roads. Scotland has two of the country's most absorbing cities. It is a land of tartan kilts, bagpipes, drams of whisky and misty glens. Wales offers superb introductions to a lost industrial heritage as well as abounds with lush valleys and medieval castles.

ROTHIEMURCHUS

Hidden in the forest of Rothiemurchus, this beautiful place is one of the most loved in the UK.  Rothiemurchus is a special place at the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, near Aviemore, in the Scottish Highlands.
The Cairngorms is the collective name for the high plateau to the south of Aviemore and which have four of the five highest mountains in Scotland.

ROTHIEMURCHUS, CAIRNGORM MOUNTAINS, HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND
Loch an Eilein Castle: www.rothiemurchus.net

The Rothiemurchus Estate includes Loch an Eilein Castle, an exceptionally lovely loch, surrounded by pines below a mountain backdrop and with an island castle, started in the 15C by Lachlan of Mackintosh but later enlarged and passing, as part of the estate, to the Gordons and then the Grants. Until the loch was dammed during the 18C  the castle could be reached by causeway.

Received from Hazel

ISLE OF SKYE

The Isle of Skye exerts a magnetic pull on visitors. It is a byword for spectacularly craggy mountains. Thus it is forgiven its relentlessly wet climate, which is inevitable as the big hill masses get in the way of the prevailing Atlantic weather fronts moving out of the south west. The new bridge linking Skye with the mainland may do little for the immediate scenery of the strait between. Sky has plenty of scenic wonders, thanks to its complex geology of overlapping ancient lava flows. 

Waller Hugh Paton (1828-1895) Entrance to the Cuiraing, Skye 1873

This painting is a spectacular example of Paton’s mature landscape work. It shows the Cuiraing (or Quiraing in modern usage), a remarkable landslip on the Trotternish peninsula of Skye. Here, the jagged spike of the thirty-seven meter high pinnacle known as ‘The Needle’ dominates the middle of the composition. Paton described the Quiraing as ‘an awful place’, despite the fact that it had become a top destination for artists and tourists alike. 

Received from Hazel, Scotland. As she says it is a very spiritualist place and great scenery!