Scotland
A Scottish pipe band on parade.
Scotland is small in size, but large in stature. Not only has it given the world the games of golf and curling, Scotland is home to tartans, scotch whisky and the poet Robbie Burns, whose composition ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is sung by millions of revellers on New Year’s Eve. You don’t even have to go to Scotland to experience Scottish culture, for there are dozens of clan associations in the United States, Canada and other parts of the English-speaking world whose members are proud of their Scottish heritage and celebrate such traditions as wearing kilts and playing bagpipes.
Map of Scotland
The Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy has described bagpipes as “the missing link between noise and sound,” but anyone who has heard a pipe band play a thunderous rendition of ‘Scotland the Brave’ would have to concede there’s a deeply stirring sound to this ancient instrument, its mournful wail once a call to battle in the lonely glens of the Scottish Highlands.
Today people flock to local Highland Games to enjoy the pipe bands, the Highland dancing and athletic events such as the hammer throw and caber toss. The sight of burly men in kilts heaving tree trunks end over end into the air makes it easy to envisage the fierce farmer-warriors, called Picts, who first inhabited Scotland back in prehistoric times. According to legend, the dreaded Picts smeared themselves with blue dye and were covered in tattoos. To maintain order among these tribes, the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall in the 2nd century. This complex of forts stretched across a wilderness of nearly 80 miles from coast to coast and marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire.
The Scottish clans, ruled by chieftains, slowly formed a kingdom under one leader, only to become a fiefdom of England in 1174. The Scots rose in revolt under the leadership of William Wallace, followed by Robert the Bruce, and regained their independence. But Scotland was plagued by repeated attacks from the English and by internal power struggles. When the Reformation arrived in the person of John Knox, founder of Scottish Presbyterianism, the country became split between pro-French (Catholic) and pro-English (Protestant) factions.
It seemed peace and unity would at last prevail when James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots, ascended the English throne in 1603 upon the death of Elizabeth I, thus uniting England and Scotland under one crown. Dissent continued, however, as successive Stuart kings tried to impose their Catholicism on England and Scotland, and were eventually exiled to France. Their supporters in Scotland, the Jacobites, were opposed to the constitutional union of England and Scotland in 1707, and tried to destroy it. Their final and most famous revolt ended in disaster at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where they were crushed by English forces.
The Jacobite rebels were led by Bonnnie Prince Charlie, born in Rome and 25 years old when he landed in Scotland to regain the British throne for his father James (the Old Pretender). Charles worked his charm on the Highland chiefs, who led their clans onto Culloden Moor to face the might of a government-trained army. In the aftermath of the battle, the rebels were treated as traitors, not prisoners of war, and hundreds were summarily executed. As for Charles, who had fled the battlefield, Flora Macdonald helped him (disguised as her maid) to escape to Isle of Skye where a French ship picked him up and returned him to Europe. There he spent the rest of his life as a broken drunkard.
Peace descended on Scotland, which became intellectually vibrant, producing the likes of philosopher David Hume and economist Adam Smith. The inventor James Watt (for whom electrical wattage is named) devised improvements to the steam engine and coined the term horsepower. As a member of the thriving British Empire, Scotland prospered economically. To meet the growing demand for Scottish wool, more efficient farming methods were introduced and thousands of sheep herders in the Highlands were dispossessed of their grazing land. These Highland Clearances resulted in a mass migration of Scots to Canada and the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The independence movement never completely disappeared in Scotland, which retains its own legal and education systems within the United Kingdom. Scotland was granted limited self-government in 1998 and now has its own parliament, but separation from the United Kingdom was rejected by a majority of voters in a referendum held in September 2014. And so the uneasy alliance continues, as it has for centuries, between Scotland and England.
Mainland Scotland is divided geographically into two basic regions: the hilly southern Lowlands where Edinburgh and Glasgow are located, and the mountainous northern Highlands. Isle of Skye and the Inner and Outer Hebrides lie off Scotland’s northwest coast, and the Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands lie off its northeast tip. The population of Scotland is about 5 million and its land area is 30,414 square miles (78,772 km).
The country’s currency is the pound sterling. Scottish Standard English is the official language and is spoken by nearly everyone; Scots dialects are also spoken throughout the country and a small minority also speak Scottish Gaelic. Some distinctly Scottish words include: loch (a lake or nearly landlocked arm of the sea); firth (a broad arm of the sea); glen (a secluded, narrow valley); kirk (church) and Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve).
Scotland is famous for its scotch whisky, especially the Highland single malts (see page 150), and for its lamb’s wool sweaters, which are extremely soft and densely woven. Look for cable knit sweaters, most notably those made with Shetland wool, which is naturally insulating and water resistant. Tartans remain popular, with kilts, scarves, ties – even turbans and scull caps – available in some 7,000 registered patterns. If you have Scottish roots, you may want to purchase something in your ancestral clan’s unique design, available in most tartan shops. Fine kilts are tailor made and require yards of wool cloth to accommodate the garment’s pleats. A man’s kilt opens on the right and should fall at mid-knee. The sporran, which hangs in front of the groin, serves as a pouch since most kilts are pocketless. Kilt hose (knee-high woollen socks with garters) complete the look. A decorative sheathed dagger is tucked into the right sock (or left sock if you’re left handed) – a traditional gesture of friendliness that symbolizes a man’s revealing his weapon when invited into someone’s home.
Map of Edinburgh Ports & Area
Several ports service Edinburgh, including Leith, which is located three miles from the city centre on the south shore of the Firth of Forth. Ships docking at Leith use the Ocean Terminal Complex, where the Royal Yacht Britannia (decommissioned in 1997) is permanently berthed as a tourist attraction. From here you can make easy connections to downtown Edinburgh by rail, bus, taxi or ship’s shuttle bus (take buses 22 or 35 from Ocean Terminal for the 15-minute ride into town.) Leith can only handle ships up to 55,000 tons, so the larger ships either anchor at South Queensferry, located 10 miles west of central Edinburgh, or dock at the port of Rosyth on the north side of the Forth, from which it’s 30 to 45 minutes by shuttle bus to downtown Edinburgh. At South Queensferry, taxis and buses depart from the tender pier; the train can be caught at nearby Dalmeny, located a half mile uphill from the pier. The train trip is about 15 to 20 minutes and gets you right into Waverley Train Station. Most cruise lines will offer a free or inexpensive shuttle to Edinburgh from any of the above ports.
A Scotsman greets visitors to South Queensferry beside Forth Bridge – a cantilever rail bridge built in 1890 and still considered an engineering marvel.
Edinburgh (pop. 500,000) is the cultural and administrative capital of Scotland. The city is also a publishing centre with a strong literary heritage which earned it UNESCO’s first City of Literature designation in 2004. Famous writers associated with Edinburgh include James Boswell, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and J.K. Rowling, who completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a room of the Balmoral Hotel on Princes Street. Fans of Ian Rankin’s detective ‘Rebus’ can soak up the atmosphere at the Oxford Bar in New Town. The Scotsman newspaper, before moving to new premises on Holyrood Road, occupied for nearly a century an imperious Victorian building (now the five-star Scotsman Hotel) which stands beside North Bridge, in between the Royal Mile and Princes Street – the latter being Edinburgh’s main shopping area, along with George Street’s designer stores and fashionable bars in the vicinity.
Edinburgh’s famous Royal Mile runs through the heart of Old Town – a World Heritage Site of cobbled lanes and courtyards containing historic buildings which date back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
1. Palace of Holyroodhouse – Edinburgh Castle stands at one end of the Royal Mile, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse (the Queen’s official residence in Scotland) is located at the other end. The palace occupies the site of a 12th-century abbey, and its original Chapel Royal contains the tombs of several Scottish kings. The palace itself was begun in about 1500 but was destroyed by fire in 1650 and rebuilt by Charles II. Mary Queen of Scots survived an attempted coup while living here.
2. Mary King’s Close – Places of interest along the Royal Mile and its warren of sidestreets and alleyways include Mary King’s Close, a subterranean street that was built over in the 1700s and is said to be haunted.
3. High Kirk of Edinburgh (St. Giles) – This place, opposite Mary King’s Close, is easily recognized by its Scottish crown steeple, where John Knox preached in the 1500s.
4. Knox’s house – Located just a few blocks to the east. The floor of St. Giles’s Chapel of the Thistle is tiled with a rare granite quarried on Ailsa Craig Island in the Firth of Clyde, which supplies most of the world’s granite used for curling rocks. Incidentally, the sport of curling began in medieval Scotland and was first played on frozen ponds with flat-bottomed river stones.
5. New Scottish Parliament – Opened in 2004 at the east end of the Royal Mile, this attraction is housed in a modernist building designed by Catalan architect Enrico Marrales. One of its decorative motifs is based on ‘The Skating Minister’ by Sir Henry Raeburn, which portrays Reverend Robert Walker, clad in black, skating on Duddingston Loch.
6. National Gallery of Scotland – Located on The Mound next to the grounds of Edinburgh Castle, this is the gallery which contains ‘The Skating Minister’.
7. Walter Scott Monument – An imposing neo-classical building, the National Gallery houses one of Britain’s finest art collections, including important works by Tintoretto, Titian, Rembrandt, Gainsborough and Turner. Nearby is a celebrated landmark of Edinburgh, the Walter Scott Monument.
Map of Edinburgh
8. Edinburgh Castle – The city’s most dominant landmark, built atop Castle Rock where it looms above the city skyline. This mighty fortress is surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, making it nearly impregnable, and its approach from the town is a long sloping forecourt, the scene of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which is held each August and showcases regimental pipe bands. The castle complex contains the Royal Palace, the 16th-century Great Hall and St. Margaret’s Chapel, which dates from the early 12th century.
9. Calton Hill – This hill provides an excellent view of the city and on clear days you can see Leith and across the Forth to Inverkeithing. Calton Hill can be accessed by stairs located opposite Calton Cemetery. A statue of Abraham Lincoln, erected in memory of Scottish Americans who died in the American Civil War, is at Calton Cemetery.
Edinburgh Castle overlooks the city of Edinburgh.
Outlying attractions include Rosslyn Chapel (of Da Vinci Code fame) and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews where the Old Course is the favourite of the game’s greatest players, including Jack Nicklaus, who played his last round of professional golf here in 2005. (Golf originated in 12th-century Scotland with shepherds knocking stones into rabbit holes.) The public Old Course is closed on Sundays to let the grass recover. On some Sundays, the links are opened as a park for the townspeople to enjoy. The grounds overlook beach-lined St. Andrews Bay, where the iconic running scene in the 1981 film Chariots of Fire was filmed. Steeped in history, the medieval town of St. Andrews is small and friendly, with a university campus founded in 1413. Prince William met his future wife, Kate Middleton, when both were students here.
Royal Mile, Edinburgh.
Another out-of-town attraction is dramatic Stirling Castle, which sits atop a lofty crag. Beautifully restored, this castle is where Mary Queen of Scots and other Scottish monarchs were crowned.
Inveraray Castle near Glasgow.
Glasgow (pop. 600,000) lies along the banks of the River Clyde and is Scotland’s leading seaport and shipbuilding centre. Ships dock at Greenock Ocean Terminal, located 25 miles from Glasgow in a wide stretch of the scenic Firth of Clyde. Glasgow’s revitalization in recent decades has transformed what was once a gritty, industrial city into a dynamic cultural centre. Points of interest include the city’s 13th-century cathedral, the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, and the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery (Scotland’s oldest museum) located on the main campus of Glasgow University.
The art nouveau architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed numerous civic and private buildings in Glasgow, most notably the Glasgow School of Art. Modern architecture in Glasgow includes the Clyde Auditorium (dubbed The Armadillo) and the Riverside Museum, built on a former shipyard site at Pointhouse Quay and housing collections of the Glasgow Museum of Transport. The Burrell Museum, in a park setting on the city’s south side, houses a famous art collection bequeathed by shipping magnate Sir Alexander Burrell.
Urquhart Castle ruins on the shores of Loch Ness.
Outlying attractions include Inveraray Castle (seat of the Duke of Argyll, Chief of Clan Campbell), Glengoyne Distillery and the national park at Loch Lomond – the largest freshwater loch in Scotland. Dotted with wooded islands at its southern end, Loch Lomond is overlooked at its northern end by Ben Lomond, a mountain rising over 3,000 feet (900 m). A cave at Loch Lomond was once used as a refuge by Robert the Bruce before he was crowned king of Scotland in 1306.
Map of Invergordon
Invergordon, situated near the entrance to Cromarty Firth, is the busiest port of the Highlands and is a half-hour drive to Inverness, capital of the Highlands with a population of 55,000. The best way to take in the area’s numerous attractions is via organized shore excursions, which include a visit to the historic battlefield at Culloden Moor, as well as a tour of the scotch-producing Spey River valley, home to the Glenlivet and Glenfiddich distilleries. Loch Ness is another popular excursion and is known worldwide for a legendary sea monster living in its depths (which reach 700 feet/213 meters). Newspapers began reporting sightings in 1933, at about the same time a circus started visiting the nearby town of Inverness. Circus trainers would sometimes lead their elephants down to the loch for a drink of water and a swim. An elephant swimming in the water could easily be mistaken for a sea monster with two humps (the top of its back and head) and an upraised trunk appearing above the surface. A variety of castles can be visited on excursions from Invergordon, namely Dunrobin Castle, Cawdor Castle and Urquhart Castle ruins.
Dunrobin Castle, seat of the Clan Sutherland.
Aberdeen, on Scotland’s east coast, is the centre of Scotland’s oil industry (supplied by North Sea oil wells) and is the port of access to Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s 50,000-acre (20,234 hectare) summer retreat where she spends her annual summer holiday. Queen Victoria, who loved all things Scottish, purchased the Balmoral Estate in 1852 and commissioned the existing castle. The Estate grounds, gardens and the Castle Ballroom are open annually to visitors from early April to the end of July.
Castle of Mey
Scrabster is located at the northern tip of mainland Scotland, its most popular area attraction being the Royal Castle and Gardens of Mey, which was the Queen Mother’s holiday home for more than 50 years. (The Queen Mother spent her childhood years at Glamis Castle, her family’s ancestral home near Dundee.)
The Orkney and Shetland Islands stretch northward from Scotland’s northern tip into the Norwegian Sea. These remote islands were originally settled by Picts, then invaded by Vikings in the 8th century. They remained Norse possessions until 1472, when they were given to the Scottish crown in trust for the undelivered dowry of Margaret of Norway who had married James III in 1469. Scandinavian traces remain in the people and their culture, and attractions for cruise visitors include the islands’ numerous neolithic sites
Only 16 of the 70 Orkney islands are inhabited, and Kirkwell is the main port, located on the principal island, called the Mainland (a corruption of the Old Norse name of Meginland). This island’s concentration of ancient relics – Stone Age villages, a borch (prehistoric fort), burial chambers and standing stones – was granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 1999.
Lerwick is the main town of the Shetland Islands, where visitors can visit Pictish forts and a Bronze Age village. These rugged, windswept islands are home to several unique breeds of small-statured animals, including the Shetland pony and Shetland sheepdog.