Scotland

Scotland has an overwhelming abundance of natural beauty, hundreds of castles stand proud from its long and turbulent past, and an innate flair for enterprise and travel has endowed the nation with artistic treasures from around the world.

The culture remains vibrant today, and there’s much to celebrate. Here’s a distillation of Scotland’s best.

Top 10 Must-See Sights

1. Edinburgh Castle
Presiding over the nation’s capital, the castle is Scotland’s pre-eminent sight, a truly inspirational historical and cultural landmark (see Edinburgh Castle) .

2. National Gallery of Scotland
An internationally significant collection of paintings, from a select group of early Renaissance masterpieces to works by Rembrandt, Velazquez, Gainsborough, Ramsay and Raeburn.

3. Royal Museum and Museum of Scotland
Two neighbouring museums, one entirely eclectic, the other taking on Scotland from prehistory to the 20th century.

4. Burrell Collection and Pollok Park
An immensely pleasurable museum, blending into the surrounding park and bringing together such curious bedfellows as a medieval dining hall and Ming Dynasty Buddha.

5. Glasgow Science Centre
Glasgow’s newest major museum, and a spellbinding array of interactive exhibits, visual enthralment and stimulation aplenty for minds young and old alike. Impossible not to be wowed.

6. Isle of Skye
An island of romantic tales and the pursuit of royalty, of strange landscapes and formidable mountain ranges, of castle strongholds and religious communities. Skye is a beautiful, wild and magical isle.

7. Loch Ness and the Great Glen
Ancient geology scarred Scotland, and the Great Glen is its deepest cut, a swath that splits the land in two. A course of water runs through this great valley, forming charismatic lochs, such as notorious Loch Ness.

8. Glencoe
To Dickens this was “a burial ground of a race of giants”, and, indeed, there is something ominous in the raw terrain of this region. It is a magnificent, sublime landscape, chilled by the history of the bloody 1692 massacre.

9. Culzean Castle
A little splash of Regency gentility and fashion in a land prized for its wildness. Indeed, the castle stands proud on a windswept clifftop, but Culzean is a velvet hand in an iron glove, and inside all is given over to Robert Adam’s dexterous play with the rules of Classicism.

10. The Cairngorms
Bird lovers, walkers and winter sports enthusiasts praying for snow all head to the woodlands, rivers, lochs, mountains and plateaux of the Cairngorms, the highest landmass in Britain. From ospreys to reindeer to Arctic flowers, it’s all here to discover.

Discover more to see and do in Scotland at www.traveldk.com/scotland.

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