Scotland

Exclusive guide to the best holiday destinations in Scotland, independent reviews from award-winning travel writers

Edinburgh Fringe 037

Edinburgh Festivals anyone?

Heading up to any Edinburgh festivals? Anna Smith shares fresh finds and hidden gems for this years’ Edinburgh festival season.

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Terry Marsh, our resident Shetland expert, offers up his own guide to Shetland.

Shetland. Discover brilliant Islands with Latitude

In 1999, when I first visited Shetland, I was presented with a certificate confirming that I had been farther north than 60°; it was a marketing ploy, but I was pleased to receive it – and still have it. Latitude, clearly, was anything but a geographical platitude to these people of the far north of Britain, closer, as they are, to the Arctic Circle than they are to London, and on a level with Hudson Bay in Canada, St Petersburg in Russia, Stockholm in Sweden and Helsinki in Finland.

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The Glasshouse hotel

The Glasshouse Hotel. An amazing Edinburgh Tardis.

The Glasshouse Hotel  is something of a Tardis: walking past the beautiful old church near Edinburgh’s iconic Calton Hill, you’d have no idea that the facade leads into a modern 77 room hotel, beautifully designed to both compliment the traditional exterior and to make the most of its scenic setting.

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The big house in spring 2011 3 MB

Isle of Eriska Restaurant

Head chef Ross Stovold has a lot to answer for as far as I am concerned. The former top man at Michelin-starred Alimentum in Cambridge has brought his Michelin magic to the Isle of Eriska restaurant, within the family owned hotel sitting on its very own Scottish island.

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Machrihanish Dunes 10th Green

Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club

Peter is the genius behind the clubhouse vegetable soup apparently. “the splash of curry powder is the secret” he whispers to me as he shows me the way to Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club first tee. Just as well he did, as these links courses can be tricky to navigate, and getting lost on the way […]

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Eriska

Isle of Eriska Hotel

It was late, and we were sitting in the bar with a night cap when a waiter walked by armed with a jug of milk and some bread crumbs. Strange after dinner order I thought, so I followed him. He opened the back door and left them out on the step. Even stranger, must be for a very special guest. “For our badgers” the waiter told me after seeing my perplexed stare. It seems at the Isle of Eriska Hotel even the badgers are well looked after.

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