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Scotland in a Nutshell

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We like to think that Scotland is small but perfectly formed! 

It includes everything from beautiful scenery to ancient history, and from vibrant 21st-century cities to pristine natural environments.

Spectacular islands, beaches, and mountains will compete with deep ancestral roots and centuries of heritage for your attention. Whether you seek wild adventure, international arts festivals, wilderness solitude, cultural exchanges, dramatic scenery, or premium pampering, Scotland offers something for all ages, all tastes, and every interest.

 

Scotland in a Nutshell

Edinburgh, a dramatically handsome and engaging city famous for its magnificent castle, and historic Old Town. Come experience Edinburgh in August, and you’ll find the city transformed by the Edinburgh Festival, the largest arts festival in the world.

An hour’s travel to the west is the country’s largest city, Glasgow, a place quite different in character from Edinburgh. Glasgow slogan 'Glasgow's Alive' is in fact an understatement of a city which has seen a remarkable transformation over the last 20 years into one of the most vibrant, welcoming, and cosmopolitan cities in Western Europe.

You don’t have to travel far north from the Glasgow–Edinburgh axis to find the beautiful countryside. The lochs, hills, and wooded glens of the Trossachs and Loch Lomond are easily reached. Further north, Perthshire and the Grampian hills of Angus and Deeside show the Scottish countryside at its richest, with colourful woodlands and long glens rising up to distinctive mountain peaks.

South of Inverness the mighty Cairngorm Mountains offer hints of the raw wilderness Scotland can still provide. To get to the far north you’ll have to cross the Great Glen, an ancient geological fissure which cuts right across the country from Ben Nevis to Loch Ness.

Scotland’s most memorable scenery is to be found on the jagged west coast, stretching from Argyll north to Wester Ross and the looming hills of Assynt. Not all of central and northern Scotland is rugged Highlands. The East coast mixes fertile farmland with pretty stone-built fishing villages and golf courses. The most notably is the prosperous university town of St Andrews and the spiritual home of golf.

Elsewhere, the whisky trail of Speyside and the castle country of the Northeast provide plenty of scope for exploration off the beaten track. While in the southern part of the country, the rolling hills and ruined abbeys of the Borders offer a refreshingly unaffected vision of rural Scotland with its picturesque villages.

The grand splendour of the Highlands would be bare without the islands off the West and North coasts. The Hebrides include Mull and its nearby pilgrimage centre of Iona; Islay and Jura, famous for their wildlife and whisky; Skye, the most visited of the Hebrides, where the snow-tipped Cuillin peaks rise up from deep sea lochs; and the Western Isles, an elongated archipelago that is the last bastion of Gaelic language and culture.

Off the north coast, Orkney and Shetland, both with a rich Norse heritage, differ not only from each other, but also quite distinctly from mainland Scotland in dialect and culture. These far-flung islands are buffeted by wind and sea that offer some of the country’s wildest scenery, finest bird-watching and best archeological sites.