The roads less travelled that take you to places that matter. The adventures that gather you up and sweep you away. The blend of the wild and the artistic that makes Scotland what it is. We'd love for you to join us.
Live from ScotlandGlasgow Central Cloudy in Glasgow, and the sun sets at 16:13.Watch Scotland live→
The Caledonian SleeperCaledonian SleeperThe Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train from London, was due out of Euston at 11.45pm, bound for Edinburgh and Glasgow.
StarsDunnottar CastleA clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.
Just openedShetlandThe Brae Youth and Community Centre in Shetland has opened again after a retrofit.
NewsOrkneyThe Pickaquoy Centre in Kirkwall is due to open its new mountain bike trails at the end of October or the start of November.
NewsSutherlandLinks House in Dornoch is starting night-time wildlife safaris with thermal cameras.
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Hidden Scotland
The places worth the journey, and the help to get there.
Did you know
Scotland's national animal is the unicorn, and on the old Scottish royal arms two crowned unicorns hold up the shield, bound in golden chains.
The oldest surviving version of the arms with unicorns is a weather-worn carving above the gateway of Rothesay Castle, on the Isle of Bute, made no later than the reign of Robert III, which ended in 1406. In about 1484 James III went further and issued gold coins called the unicorn and the half-unicorn. The chain is usually read as a sign of royal strength: the unicorn was thought too wild for anyone to tame, and only a Scottish king was strong enough to hold it. You can still spot unicorns across the country, from the top of the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh to the gate of the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
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WildlifeThis week
Seen 6 timesOtter
Seen 5 timesPink-footed goose
Seen 4 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 4 times · RenfrewshireDipper
Seen 4 timesRed squirrel
Seen 3 times · DumfriesRed kite
Seen 3 timesBarnacle goose
Seen 3 times · PittenweemGrey seal
Seen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagle
Seen twiceCommon seal
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whale
Seen once · AppinPine marten
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen onceRed deer
Seen 6 timesOtterSeen 5 timesPink-footed gooseSeen 4 times · East LothianGannetSeen 4 times · RenfrewshireDipperSeen 4 timesRed squirrelSeen 3 times · DumfriesRed kiteSeen 3 timesBarnacle gooseSeen 3 times · PittenweemGrey sealSeen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagleSeen twiceCommon sealSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whaleSeen once · AppinPine martenSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareSeen onceRed deerThe wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.
Scotland's otters live along the sea coast as well as the rivers, and on the west coast and the islands they are often seen in the kelp at low tide, and this week the otter was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 6 sightings. These are the animals people have reported most in the last seven days, the most seen first. Every sighting is logged with a photograph or a recording on iNaturalist, the wildlife recording site, and each card opens them on its map.
Where to see wildlife in Scotland
Loch Ness, in the Highlands near Inverness, holds more water than all the lakes of England and Wales put together.Christmas Tree Festival at St Conan's KirkThe flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.The Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train from London, was due out of Euston at 11.45pm, bound for Edinburgh and Glasgow.Gretna Green, the Dumfries and Galloway village where blacksmiths once married runaway couples over the anvil, has a resident blacksmith again for the first time in more than 150 years.A clear, dark night is forecast over Dunnottar Castle.On this weekend.On this weekend.On this weekend.On this weekend.The sheep of North Ronaldsay, in Orkney, live almost entirely on seaweed, kept on the shore by a stone wall that runs right round the island.This is Kingshouse Hotel in autumn.Orkney and Shetland belonged to Norway until 1468 and 1469, when they were pledged to Scotland for a royal wedding dowry that was never paid.The oldest Harrier jump jet in existence is being cleaned at the National Museum of Flight for the 60th anniversary of its first flight, on 9 November.Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, would rather walk the quiet sands of Huisinis than famous Luskentyre, on the Isle of Harris.James Seton carved his initials and his wife's above the door of Greenknowe Tower in 1581, and the original iron gate survives.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.A red kite was seen near Dumfries.J.M. Barrie, from Kirriemuir in Angus, gave Peter Pan to a London children's hospital, and a special law lets it earn from the story for ever.Neil Hammond built Dun Brewing at Glenelg, in Lochalsh, in 2018, between two Iron Age stone towers and on land that once held his wind-turbine business.The Scullery: A Slow Stay in the Yarrow ValleyNorsemen who broke into Maeshowe, a 5,000-year-old tomb in Orkney, covered its walls in graffiti, including 'Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women'.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.True or false: the shaggy Highland cow is a kind of yak.Friends of the lighthouse keeper John Boath and his wife Hazel phoned ahead whenever the couple moved on, so the next cottage down the road could come out and wave too.Thomas Blake Glover, from Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, helped found the company that became Mitsubishi and was honoured by the Emperor of Japan.The Net Store and Rhuroin: Two Houses by the Sea in ApplecrossGuardswell Farm, in the Sidlaw Hills of Perthshire, has no wifi or TVs, because Anna Lamotte, who runs it, finds escaping the screen so restorative.When Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, died in 1922, every telephone in North America fell silent for a minute in his honour.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.The air-filled tyre was first patented in 1845 by Robert William Thomson, a 23-year-old from Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, more than 40 years before John Boyd Dunlop's.The Britannia Panopticon in Glasgow, billed as the world's oldest surviving music hall, is said to be where Stan Laurel first appeared on stage, in 1906.The tune that greets the US president began in a poem set on which Scottish loch?In 1969 the engraver Malcolm Appleby bought the old Victorian railway station at Crathes, near Banchory, for 1,600 pounds, seven shillings and four pence.Fingal's Cave, on the uninhabited island of Staffa off Mull, inspired Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture after the composer visited in 1829.How big was the official crowd when Scotland played England at Hampden Park, Glasgow, in 1937?The Bell Rock Lighthouse, alone in the sea off Arbroath, is the world's oldest working sea-washed lighthouse.The Victorian public toilets in Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute, are so grand that they have become one of the town's most celebrated sights.The Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is on the shortlist for Venue of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards.When Bill Gault, later the last of Scotland's lighthouse keepers, was posted to Copinsay Lighthouse in Orkney, his son kept in touch by radio from Stromness.Corrour, on Rannoch Moor in the Highlands, is the highest mainline railway station in the UK, and no public road leads to it.Every issue we have printed.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.On his first day as a volunteer at a dig on St Ninian's Isle, in Shetland, a 15-year-old schoolboy found a hoard of Pictish silver.James Taylor, from near Auchenblae in Kincardineshire, started which crop in Sri Lanka in 1867?Kat Hill, a historian turned writer on the Isle of Skye, found the idea for her book 'Bothy' in the visitor book of a bothy beside Loch Etive.The Duke of Atholl's own regiment, the Atholl Highlanders of Blair Castle in Perthshire, has been described as the only legal private army in Europe.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.Scotland, region by region.In Scottish Gaelic folklore, the Cailleach Bheurra, the Queen of Winter, was believed to rule the land from Samhain at the end of October until Beltane.A red squirrel was seen in Oban.Castle Campbell, above Dollar Glen in the Ochil Hills, was renamed in the 15th century by the Earl of Argyll, with King James IV's permission.More than 3,000 seals have been counted on the sands at the mouth of the Ythan, north of Aberdeen.Donald Dinnie, a Highland Games champion from Aberdeenshire, toured the world winning more than 10,000 competitions and became known as the greatest athlete of the 19th century.Orkney's name is thought to begin with a Pictish word for a young pig or young boar, which Norse settlers later turned into 'Seal Islands'.Wild Miso Noodle BrothYou can tell who the lords of Lochranza were afraid of by which way the front door faces.At Baern Café in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, leftover kimchi juice goes into the sourdough and corn from the soup becomes a sweetcorn and tarragon lemonade.A large decorated pot about 5,000 years old is being pieced together from sherds found at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney.What's on in Scotland, today and coming up.What's on in Scotland, today and coming up.What's on in Scotland, today and coming up.What's on in Scotland, today and coming up.What's on in Scotland, today and coming up.Thomas Payne, a signwriter in Longniddry, East Lothian, wants to hand-paint every sign in his village, even for free when a business cannot afford him.Half of One, Isle of Skye.Isle of Barra gin has won Best Overall Gin at this year's World Spirits Competition in New York.Archaeologists excavating the Iron Age broch and village at Old Scatness, in Shetland, uncovered a carving of a bear.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.From Scotland's past.The wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan, aged 54, calls himself the blink of a midge's eye beside Buachaille Etive Mòr in Glencoe, which formed around 420 million years ago.A barn owl flies almost without a sound, because a row of tiny hooks on the front edge of its wing deadens the rush of the air.Loch Affric, in the Highlands, has appeared in which Hollywood film?Polly Cameron, whose family has had The Dell of Abernethy near Nethy Bridge since the 1960s, says the way into the Cairngorms is to slow right down.The Story of SpringbankSubscribe to Hidden Scotland.Alice Varley, a volunteer with the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, says rescue is like a team sport, except nobody knows when the matches will be.St Conan's Kirk, on Loch Awe in Argyll, was almost fifty years in the building, begun by the architect Walter Douglas Campbell and carried on by his sister.Hideaways in PerthshireThe shore at Corrie, a village on the Isle of Arran, holds a fossilised lightning strike and limestone cliffs laid down when Arran lay near the equator.True or false: John o' Groats is the most northerly point of mainland Britain.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.A tale to read.The Never Ending Skein, a goose artwork made by people across Dumfries and Galloway, is spending the winter at WWT Caerlaverock.Half of One: A Family Home on SkyeZanna Wilson, an artist who runs the Watermill Gallery in Aberfeldy, Highland Perthshire, says the town's community Facebook page gives the most reliable northern lights alerts.In winter the golf course at Askernish on South Uist is shared with the crofters' sheep and cattle.Gannets were seen in Edinburgh.Alan Waldron, who makes bagpipes by hand on Broad Street below Stirling Castle, took his first piping lessons in Gibraltar in 1991.None of the three Maclean brothers had a background in rowing, yet in 2019 Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan became the fastest and youngest trio ever to cross the Atlantic.Paisley Abbey was begun by thirteen monks from Shropshire?Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.The Dumfriesshire village of Ae probably takes its name from an Old Norse word meaning what?The Waterloo Monument, a 150ft stone column on a hilltop near Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, took two attempts to build, because the first one collapsed.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Distilleries in Aberdeenshire.Killiecrankie House, near Pitlochry, has been named Scotland's fine dining restaurant of the year for the second year running.Ellis O'Connor, a landscape painter who lives on the Isle of Skye, has taken art residencies in places as wild as the Faroes, Orkney, Svalbard and Shetland.Issue 13 is out now.From Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.True or false: people spit on the Heart of Midlothian, a heart set into the cobbles of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, for good luck.John Best came to Fair Isle, halfway between Orkney and Shetland, in 1973 for what was meant to be a single year, and never once thought of leaving.Wallace and Gromit are coming to V&A Dundee in March 2027, in an Aardman exhibition showing in Scotland for the first time.“Walking the Water of Leith from the shore towards Stockbridge will take you past some fantastic inner-city nature and drop you near some of the city's best galleries too.”Pink-footed geese were seen in Aberdeen.At Kylerhea Otter Hide, on the east coast of Skye, patient visitors may glimpse wild otters playing on the remote shore of the narrows.Speyside's Malt Whisky Trail links eight of Scotland's most famous distilleries, with tours and tutored tastings.Give a magazine subscription.Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Shelley Richmond, a photographer in Dervaig on the Isle of Mull, says everyone on the island seems to have at least three jobs.What's Here: Seth Bennett, Dundee Jazz Festival is on today.Loch Glass, under Ben Wyvis, is where the river that cut the Black Rock Gorge begins.True or false: the sticky postage stamp was invented by a bookseller from Dundee.In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Fiona, an islander on Fair Isle between Orkney and Shetland, ran the shop and post office, taught art and led the island's fire unit, all at once.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Restaurants in Fife.Monkstadt House, near Uig, was once the seat of the MacDonald chiefs, and Bonnie Prince Charlie came ashore on the shore below it.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeOur latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Our latest days out.Rory Dowling, a guitar maker in Fife's East Neuk, named Taran Guitars after the Gaelic word for thunder and a hill on Harris.Guess where this is?Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.Things to do and walks in Angus.Things to do and walks in Angus.Things to do and walks in Angus.Things to do and walks in Angus.Things to do and walks in Angus.The tennis player Andy Murray says Scotland's bad weather proves how much he loved tennis, because otherwise he just wouldn't have gone out to play.EileanHave you been to Loch Lomond?Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Somewhere to stay.Susie Walker Munro, who grows tea on her family's farm in Angus, helped bring in a scientific test that can show whether tea sold as Scottish really was grown in Scotland.Mary Arnold-Forster, an architect in Dunkeld, Perthshire, often goes to see a new building site by bike or kayak, and sometimes camps on it.The Isle of Arran is split by the Highland Boundary Fault, so it has both Highland and Lowland scenery in just 55 miles of coastline.Learning to row is 'required education' for island children in Stromness, Orkney, as the photographer Jim Richardson found when he went out with them.Scotland's national poet is known as the Makar, from the old Scots word for 'maker', used mostly for a maker of verses.