Scotland Magazine Issue 27

There was this bloke in the front once...

Dominic Roskrow talks Scotland to a Glasgow taxi driver

If you use taxis a fair bit then from time to time you get lucky and you stumble across one who is less the moaning cynic and more part tour guide and part information centre. It happened to me the o...

By Dominic Roskrow in the section From the Editor

A real chance to become part of history

One notable benefit of Tartan Week in New York, so far as I am concerned, is that it provides those of us who tend to be preoccupied with whatever we are doing back home with an opportunity to get to ...

By Roddy Martine in the section Roddy Martine's World

Charity is the key

Volunteers clearing rubbish from the summit of Ben Nevis were in for a bit of a shock when they uncovered a piano under a pile of stones. The discovery was made when a clean-up team from the John Mui...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Listed...

The winners have been announced for the latest List guide to restaurants in Edinburgh and Glasgow. The eating and drinking guide provides reviews and information about 800 restaurants, bistros, bars ...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Mey it continue

A new project has been launched to preserve and secure the future of HRH the Queen Mother’s former home, the Castle of Mey in Caithness. Friends of the Castle of Mey will enjoy complimentary entry in...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Rosslyn on film

The mystery and legend of Rosslyn Chapel, made famous for its part in the blockbuster novel and film The Da Vinci Code, is being used as a hook to attract a new style of visitor to Midlothian. VisitS...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Airports look to future

To celebrate its 40 year milestone, Glasgow Airport has opened a new multi-million pound departure lounge. Skylounge comprises two new passenger lounges – a holiday lounge for families, and a prestig...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Safari co is green

Highland Adventure Safaris, Scotland’s premier Landrover safari company is celebrating becoming the first activity tourism operator in Scotland to gain a Gold Award for its day trips in the national G...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Stylish hotel is a sealife centre

The Moray Firth is one of the best parts of Britain for dolphin spotting, and one hotel is offering the chance to do it in style. Visitors on a Getaway Weekend at Castle of Park, near Banff, can head...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Turnberry turns 100

One of Scotland’s finest hotels and golfing destinations has hit the century mark. The Westin Turnberry Resort celebrated its 100th anniversary in May. Exactly a hundred years to the day that the Tu...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Despatches

Book reviews

The Border Line This is a travelogue of author and broadcaster Eric Robson’s journey through the Borders, starting at Solway Firth and covering 105 miles through forest and across moor to Berwick upo...

By Sally Toms in the section Scotland Reviews

Port Grullain Bay, Isle of Iona

Photographer Andy Hall looks at the favourite place of actor Kevin McKidd

Perhaps it is because you cannot take a car on to Iona or more probably because it is of historical and spiritual significance, whenever you set foot on this tiny Hebridean island, you can feel a wave...

By Andy Hall in the section Scenic Scotland

Royalty's sporting headquarters

Charles Douglas visits Traquair House which, it is sometimes claimed, is the oldest inhabited house in Scotland

The lands of Traquair were once part of a royal hunting forest and, over the centuries, Traquair House has played host to 27 kings on sporting excursions into the rich forests of Ettrick and Lauderdal...

By Charles Douglas in the section Historic Houses

Lismore's long history

In the latest in his series on lesser known islands, John Hannavy visits Lismore

My first sight of the island of Lismore was from Duart Castle on Mull in early summer 1991 – a blue grey pencil of land just visible in the distance, and lying quietly beneath a spectacular low rainbo...

By John Hannavy in the section Scottish Islands

The greatest fraud of all?

James Irvine Robertsonon the strange but highly lucrative case of James Macpherson

Culloden was the last battle to be fought on British soil. After centuries of trying to integrate the alien and barbaric culture that had clung on in the north for so long into mainstream Scottish lif...

By James Irvine Robertson in the section Scottish History

Where Eagles dare

Graham Holliday goes bird-watching on the isles of Mull and Skye

The islands of Mull and Skye are two of Europe’s best destinations for wildlife watchers. Acombination of wild, rugged mountains, windswept moors and high, inhospitable coastal cliffs make these two i...

By Graham Holiday in the section Scottish Wildlife

Falls for your loving

Scotland has some stunning waterfalls. Emma Newlands picks five of her favourites

The Scottish landscape is notorious for being dramatic, and its many spectacular waterfalls are no exception. Some you can swim at, others are more in the James Bond mould involving five hour long hi...

By Emma Newlands in the section Scottish Waterfalls

Read all about it

Scotland has some fantastic secondhand and antiquarian bookshop. Hannah Adcock browses through some of her favourites

If there is one word to sum up the secondhand book buying business – and this is asking a lot – it is serendipity. So often you go in to a secondhand bookshop with a title in mind before leaving with...

By Hannah Adcock in the section Scottish Shopping

True contrast in remote Scotland

The top third of Scotland is often grouped together but as Ian Buxton reports, the region is diverse and impressive

Comprising very roughly the top third of Scotland’s mainland land mass, the counties of Caithness, Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty present many faces to the visitor. From ancient rocks to one of Brit...

By Ian Buxton in the section Regional Focus

A new lease of life

The Old Waverley Hotel is blessed and cursed by its past. Sally Toms reports

Ensconced in a comfy corner gazing at an array of spirits bottles on the bar, it’s hard to believe that when The Old Waverley Hotel originally threw open its doors it was the first Temperance hotel in...

By Sally Toms in the section Best of Scotland

Against the grain

Tucked away in Edinburgh’s Old Town lies a restaurant that is well worth discovering. Sally Toms picks up her knife and fork

Hidden amongst the colourful shop fronts of Edinburgh’s Victoria Street, just below the Royal Mile, lies an unassuming restaurant called The Grain Store. Outside, there’s a plain looking board printe...

By Sally Toms in the section Best of Scotland

Well worth waiting for

Mark Nicholls welcomes the re-opening of Scotland’s most popular museum

The building is stunning, the collections diverse and the artwork sublime. As an institution, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum has been missed by the people of Glasgow and visitors alike over th...

By Mark Nicholls in the section Best of Scotland

Restaurants with rooms

Lochside Lodge and Roundhouse Restaurant Bridgend of Lintrathen, Angus Tel: +44 (0)1575 560 340 On the border of Perthshire and Angus and so happily handy for Perth or Dundee, Lochside Lodge with its...

By in the section Best of Scotland

2006 Restaurants of the Year

Scotland pioneered online voting as a way of registering nominations of approval (and otherwise) for the country’s hotels. The result was to become The Scottish Hotels of the Year Awards, and the thir...

By in the section Best of Scotland

Go on... treat yourself!

Chocoholics beware: Sue Lawrence is playing temptress

Itried. I really did try. I avoided pushing my trolley down the confectionery aisle in the supermarket. I immediately brushed my teeth after meals so I wouldn’t be tempted. I hid all bars and boxes an...

By Sue Lawrence in the section Scottish Food

Intensive training

In the first of a new series on days out by train, Mark Nicholls takes a trip on the Eastern coast line

The rail route between Edinburgh and the granite outpost of the northeast, Aberdeen, is one of the most exhilarating Scotland has to offer. For a start, you experience two incredible feats of enginee...

By Mark Nicholls in the section Scottish Travel

A bloody clan co-operative (Clan Chattan)

Clan Chattan is a coalition of small clans from the Highlands. James Irvine Robertson

Clan Chattan (pronounced ‘Hattan’) – the Clan of the Cats – is unique. It is not just one clan, but a coalition of more than a dozen occupying the central Highlands and who acknowledged the chief of t...

By James Irvine Robertson in the section Scottish Clans

Take the low road

In the first instalment of a two-part feature, Paul Kirkwood pedals his way across Perthshire

As Kathmandu is to Nepal so Pitlochry is to Perthshire. For yak hair read tweed. Both towns are multi-national base camps for expeditions and mine was to take me 40 miles due west by bike to the fring...

By Paul Kirkwood in the section Scottish Cycling

Scott in Shetland

In the first of a new series tracing Sir Walter Scott’s relationship with the Scottish islands, Ian Mitchell looks at Shetland

In 1814 Scott accepted an invitation from the engineer Robert Stevenson to accompany him aboard a ship of the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners, on a tour circumnavigating Scotland and inspecting the ...

By Ian Mitchell in the section Scottish Islands

Big Mac

With Scotland set to honour Charles Rennie Mackintosh with a major festival, Mark Nicholls looks at his legacy

Like so many creative talents, the true value of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work was not fully appreciated during his lifetime. For the famed architect, artist and designer, it would be decades befo...

By Mark Nicholls in the section Scottish Events

Oh I do like to be beside The Seaside

Which is why – in the interests of research – Gilly Pickup packs her bucket, spade and kiss-me-quick hat to find a few of Scotland’s best beaches

West Sands Beach, St Andrews, Fife Stunning two mile swathe of immaculately clean, firm sand with a backdrop of medieval towers – what a cracking place to enjoy a dose of bracingly wholesome, fresh-as...

By Gilly Pickup in the section Scottish Beaches

Art and antiques news

Sally Toms rounds up all the latest news and developments

Gaze on the face of a Queen Visitors to the capital will have a rare opportunity to look upon the face of Mary, Queen of Scots as part of an exhibition at Lyon and Turnbull this summer. The death mas...

By Sally Toms in the section Scottish Antiques