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 ScotlandEdinburgh Castle Cloudy in Edinburgh, and the sun sets at 16:07.Watch Scotland live→
SnowWatch Scotland liveAbout 3 centimetres of snow fell on An Teallach, in Wester Ross, yesterday.
Mountain weatherBen NevisIt is 8° in Fort William, but on the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, it feels like minus 6°.
Just openedShetlandLerwick Town Hall is open again.
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 5 times · Rosneath RoadDipper
Seen 5 timesOtter
Seen 4 times · East LothianBarnacle goose
Seen 4 timesRed squirrel
Seen 3 times · East LothianGannet
Seen 3 times · DumfriesRed kite
Seen 3 timesPink-footed goose
Seen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagle
Seen twice · PittenweemGrey seal
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen oncePtarmigan
Seen onceGolden eagle
Seen once · HighlandOrca
Seen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whale
Seen onceCommon seal
Seen once · AppinPine marten
Seen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen onceRed deer
Seen 5 times · Rosneath RoadDipperSeen 5 timesOtterSeen 4 times · East LothianBarnacle gooseSeen 4 timesRed squirrelSeen 3 times · East LothianGannetSeen 3 times · DumfriesRed kiteSeen 3 timesPink-footed gooseSeen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagleSeen twice · PittenweemGrey sealSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen oncePtarmiganSeen onceGolden eagleSeen once · HighlandOrcaSeen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whaleSeen onceCommon sealSeen once · AppinPine martenSeen once · Loch Fleet, GolspieAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareSeen onceRed deerThe wildlife people spotted in Scotland this week.
The dipper is a small brown river bird with a white bib that walks underwater along the beds of fast rivers, hunting for insects, and this week the dipper was the animal reported most often in Scotland: 5 sightings, the latest near Rosneath Road, Helensburgh. 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 ScotlandCromars, the St Andrews fish and chip shop, has opened a takeaway in Dundee.Each August, the Fife fishing town of Pittenweem holds a week-long arts festival, with artists showing their work everywhere from front rooms to garden sheds.Stewart Christie & Co in EdinburghThe flight between Westray and Papa Westray, two of the Orkney islands, is the world's shortest scheduled flight, timed at two minutes including taxiing.About 3 centimetres of snow fell on An Teallach, in Wester Ross, yesterday.It is 8° in Fort William, but on the summit of Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, it feels like minus 6°.Emma and Fergus, who met as students at Edinburgh University, dreamt up The Tartan Blanket Co on the drive up to Skye for their mini-moon, a short honeymoon.Yard97 in GrangeThe 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 Carrbridge 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.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.James Seton carved his initials and his wife's above the door of Greenknowe Tower in 1581, and the original iron gate survives.Graeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, found the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, flatter than Harris but no less dramatic.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.Norsemen 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'.The author Sir Alexander McCall Smith is an investor in Stewart Christie & Co in Edinburgh's New Town, the oldest bespoke tailor in Scotland.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.Norman MacCaig was born in Edinburgh.Scotland has its own rainforest along the west coast, and NatureScot says it is as important as tropical rainforest, but even rarer.True or false: it has been proved that chicken tikka masala was invented in Glasgow.Lochranza, the village at the north end of the Isle of Arran, could only be reached by water until 1843.The strongest gust ever measured at a high-level UK weather station hit the summit of Cairn Gorm, in the Cairngorms, at 173 mph in 1986.The Black Shed: An Interview with Blair HunterWhite-tailed eagles, the UK's largest birds of prey, died out in Scotland in 1918 and returned from 1975, starting on the Isle of Rum.Sophie Howarth and Sarah Maclaren run Turadh, a retreat for carers at Glenelg in the Highlands, named with the Gaelic word for sun breaking through between showers.True or false: a chip shop in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, says it fried the first Mars bar in batter, in 1992.From a lookout high on Linlithgow Palace, Margaret Tudor is said to have watched for her husband, James IV, to come home from Flodden.A traffic cone is thought to have sat on the head of the Duke of Wellington's statue in Glasgow since at least the 1980s.The Scullery: A Slow Stay in the Yarrow ValleyKat 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 Corryvreckan, between Jura and Scarba, is said to be the third largest whirlpool in the world, and its roar can be heard 16 km away.The Never Ending Skein, a goose artwork made by people across Dumfries and Galloway, is spending the winter at WWT Caerlaverock.Dunnottar Castle, near Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire, inspired the look of Pixar's Brave, and the film's standing stones were inspired by the Callanish Stones on Lewis.The sea cliffs of St Kilda, in the Outer Hebrides, are the highest in the UK, and its sea stacks are the tallest in Britain.Stewart Christie & Co in Edinburgh's New Town, the oldest bespoke tailor in Scotland, has customer ledgers going back to 1720.There were Picts on the sea stack beside Dunnottar Castle.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Mousa Broch, on the small island of Mousa in Shetland, is the tallest broch still standing, rising 13.3 metres high.Every Hogmanay in Stonehaven, on the Aberdeenshire coast, around fifty people swing blazing balls of fire round their heads along the High Street.Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan Maclean, three brothers from Scotland, rowed across the Pacific for 139 days, and stepping back on land in Australia felt like being reborn.Every issue we have printed.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.Gannets were seen in Edinburgh.Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island, would not join his family's lighthouse business, yet his poem The Light-Keeper looks out from the lamp room itself.Loch Affric, in the Highlands, has appeared in which Hollywood film?Killiecrankie House, near Pitlochry, has been named Scotland's fine dining restaurant of the year for the second year running.Alloway Auld Kirk, in Ayrshire, was already a ruin when Robert Burns was born nearby.For Jeni Iannetta of Bad Girl Bakery, the first stop for food in Inverness is the Victorian Market's food hall, and not just because her bakery is there.Wild Miso Noodle BrothThe Chapel Royal at Stirling was thrown up in a hurry for one christening.Elaine Campbell, who runs Camella Crafts in Craighouse on Jura, makes her gifts from what the island gives her, from deer antler to old whisky barrels.Wallace and Gromit are coming to V&A Dundee in March 2027, in an Aardman exhibition showing in Scotland for the first time.Di Gilpin arrived on the Isle of Skye in 1983 with a tent, wool and her knitting needles, and later designed knitwear for Paul Smith and Nike.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.Eskfield, a Palladian spa house of 1714 on the Penicuik Estate just south of Edinburgh, has been restored as a place to stay.How do locals say the name of Avoch, the village on the Black Isle?In winter, the storyteller Morvern Graham takes a flask of coffee to the top of a rock above the North Sea at high tide to watch the waves.Half of One, Isle of Skye.Lean To Coffee at Breakish is building a year-round bakery in Broadford and plans to open seven days a week.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.The Scots word 'coorie' means to cuddle up with a loved one, and the Coorie lodge on Loch Venachar, in the Trossachs, is a modern black box.A red squirrel was seen in Oban.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.True or false: the name Glasgow means 'dear green place'.Jessica Elliott Dennison, the cookbook writer behind Elliott's Kitchen on Sciennes Road in Edinburgh, trains her new staff to 'chop like you're drunk'.Cairngorm Mountain, above Aviemore, has finished improving the West Wall Poma, its longest ski tow, ahead of the winter season.Tower O'EssFair Isle, between mainland Shetland and Orkney, is the most remote inhabited island in the UK, home to just 44 people in 2022.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 gardens of Dunrobin Castle, near Golspie in Sutherland, were laid out in 1850 by Sir Charles Barry, who modelled them on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.Innerpeffray Library, near Crieff, still has its old Borrowers' Register, and you can still sit down with its rare books.Hoy Heritage Centre in Orkney has gathered the names of around 600 people who have climbed the Old Man of Hoy.The last islanders left the village on Hirta, St Kilda, far out in the Atlantic. In what year?Giacomo Pesce, the baker at Baern Café in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, came to bread by way of a PhD in mineral physics.Woodside Lodge: The Jewel of Loch GoilStories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.The Ghillie DhuBarnacle geese were seen in North Berwick.The Old Man of Hoy, the towering sea stack off the island of Hoy in Orkney, has a tall tale attached to its first climb.True or false: the famous twit-twoo is not one tawny owl but two, calling to each other.When the old Burr's Store in Tongue, on Scotland's north coast, was brought back to life, the community was asked what it wanted, and a bakery topped the wish list.Architect-Designed Places to Stay on SkyeFrom Glenmore in the Cairngorms, the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd's hill trip ends with a short session of feeding the reindeer by hand.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Distilleries in Argyll and Bute.Elizabeth Tindal, a Dark Sky Ranger in the Galloway Forest in Dumfries and Galloway, says most of the light pollution in her park comes from the moon.Sweetheart Abbey, at New Abbey near Dumfries, is named for a lady who kept her late husband's embalmed heart with her for the rest of her life.True or false: the sticky postage stamp was invented by a bookseller from Dundee.Verity Hurding, a chef from Glenelg in Lochalsh, and her wife Jenny keep the supper clubs they run as Eòlach to around eight guests.Today calls for a dram.Give a magazine subscription.“Montrose is located within walking distance of Princes Street, Calton Hill, Arthur's seat, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Scottish Parliament and the Royal Mile, the perfect stop either on your way out or on your way back to relax and enjoy.”A guest who planned a whole trip around Black h, a holiday house on Skye, turned out to be an old college friend of its owner, Sarah.Issue 13 is out now.In 1902 John Dewar & Sons, the Perth firm whose family built Aberfeldy distillery, trademarked the name of a way to drink whisky. Which?Morvern Graham, an artist and storyteller on a cliff top above the North Sea, grew up on folktales told on a rocky shore.Doune Castle, near Stirling, was Castle Anthrax in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.Restaurants and cafés in Argyll and Bute.More than 3,000 seals have been counted on the sands at the mouth of the Ythan, north of Aberdeen.Some of the wild venison in Great Glen Charcuterie's salami, made near Spean Bridge in the Highlands, is carried off the hills by stalkers with Highland ponies.The man who built Carnasserie Castle also made the first book ever printed in Scots Gaelic.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeCastle Stalker, on Loch Linnhe in Argyll, was lost by the Stewarts of Appin to their rivals the Campbells in 1620, over a drunken wager.Guess where this is?June Richard welcomed weightlifters from all over the world to her garden to lift the Inver stone, now at the Braemar Highland Games Centre.It is the last day of Stromness Glimmers: A Festival of Light.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.Our latest days out.A dipper was seen near Rosneath Road, Helensburgh.Liam Griffin moved in beside the ruined Church of St Bride in Lerags Glen, a few miles from Oban, and set out to rescue it from the undergrowth.Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.Things to do and walks in Argyll and Bute.CamasOld Tom Morris, four times winner of the Open, was born on North Street in St Andrews in 1821, the son of a weaver.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.Some good places to stay, newly added to the site.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.The photographer Soo Burnell says the symmetry of Scotland's old swimming pools, such as Portobello Baths in Edinburgh, calms her busy mind.On the Isle of Jura, the staff of Camella Crafts, a craft shop in the village of Craighouse, also look after the local fuel pump.Sam Heughan, the Outlander actor, runs Ride Galloway, a motorbike weekend that takes around 200 riders on nearly 130 miles of Dumfries and Galloway roads.