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 ScotlandGlen Coe Clear in Lochaber, and the sun sets at 16:10.Watch Scotland live→
The Caledonian SleeperCaledonian SleeperThe Caledonian Sleeper, the overnight train from London, was due out of Euston at 11.30pm, bound for Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Shooting starsWatch Scotland liveThe Leonids are at their best on Monday night.
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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A free morning email to see what’s on this week, catch up on what’s happening in Scotland and find somewhere new to go.
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.
92 views
WildlifeThis week
Seen 6 timesOtter
Seen 4 times · East LothianBarnacle goose
Seen 4 timesRed squirrel
Seen 3 times · DumfriesRed kite
Seen 3 timesPink-footed goose
Seen 3 times · Rosneath RoadDipper
Seen twice · East LothianGannet
Seen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagle
Seen twice · EdinburghGrey seal
Seen twice · EdinburghRed grouse
Seen once · HighlandCapercaillie
Seen onceGolden eagle
Seen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whale
Seen onceCommon seal
Seen once · AppinPine marten
Seen once · River South EskAtlantic salmon
Seen onceMountain hare
Seen onceBadger
Seen 6 timesOtterSeen 4 times · East LothianBarnacle gooseSeen 4 timesRed squirrelSeen 3 times · DumfriesRed kiteSeen 3 timesPink-footed gooseSeen 3 times · Rosneath RoadDipperSeen twice · East LothianGannetSeen twice · Isle Of North UistWhite-tailed eagleSeen twice · EdinburghGrey sealSeen twice · EdinburghRed grouseSeen once · HighlandCapercaillieSeen onceGolden eagleSeen once · Argyll and ButeMinke whaleSeen onceCommon sealSeen once · AppinPine martenSeen once · River South EskAtlantic salmonSeen onceMountain hareSeen onceBadgerThe 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 ScotlandGraeme Johncock, who travels Scotland for Hidden Scotland, drove out to Ardnamurchan Lighthouse, near the western tip of the Scottish mainland.Brodie Illuminated: The Land of the PictsThe 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 11.30pm, bound for Edinburgh and Glasgow.The Leonids are at their best on Monday night.Glen Dye, an estate in Aberdeenshire, is one of many in Scotland giving old estate workers' homes a new life as holiday cottages.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.The Never Ending Skein, a goose artwork made by people across Dumfries and Galloway, is spending the winter at WWT Caerlaverock.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.Woodside Lodge: The Jewel of Loch GoilOn the Isle of Jura, the staff of Camella Crafts, a craft shop in the village of Craighouse, also look after the local fuel pump.Wojtek, a bear who was enlisted in the Polish army in the Second World War, spent the rest of his life at Edinburgh Zoo.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.Half of One: A Family Home on SkyeThe Chapel Royal at Stirling was thrown up in a hurry for one christening.“Take a walk along to Newhailes or the Brunstane Burn for that out of the city (but still in the city) feel. It's just a 20 minute walk from the cafe but feels like it's miles away when you are there. Think woodland, vibrant greens, open fields. A great place to walk through the trees when it's pouring with rain. Good for dogs too!.”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'.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.Our latest collections.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.Killiecrankie House, near Pitlochry, has been named Scotland's fine dining restaurant of the year for the second year running.Ebenezer Place, in Wick in Caithness, is the shortest street in the world, at just 2.05 metres long with a single door.A dipper was seen near Rosneath Road, Helensburgh.Some of the stones of the Touchstone Maze, near Strathpeffer, are among the oldest rock on Earth.In 1788, at Siccar Point on the Berwickshire coast of the Scottish Borders, the geologist James Hutton saw that the Earth was far older than people then believed.Speyside's Malt Whisky Trail links eight of Scotland's most famous distilleries, with tours and tutored tastings.Every 18.6 years the moon skims low over the hills behind the Callanish Stones, on the Isle of Lewis, and some believe the circle was built to watch it.The only herd of reindeer in the British Isles roams free in the Cairngorm mountains, and it began with seven reindeer brought from Sweden in 1952.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.Burns set the witches' dance in Tam o' Shanter at Alloway Auld Kirk, where his own father lies buried.The Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm, in Orkney, was made from two Nissen huts by Italian prisoners of war in 1943 and 1944.Every Christmas Day and New Year's Day, hundreds of men in Kirkwall, on Orkney, push a ball through the town's streets in the Ba' game.What was the score when Arbroath beat Bon Accord in a Scottish Cup football match in 1885?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.The first lasting colour photograph, made in 1861, was a picture of a tartan ribbon, and its method came from the Edinburgh-born physicist James Clerk Maxwell.Every issue we have printed.The Fortingall Yew, in a Perthshire churchyard, is thought to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old, and may be the oldest tree in Britain.Queen Victoria sailed on Loch Katrine, in the Trossachs, in 1859 to see the new waterworks for Glasgow.Hoy Heritage Centre in Orkney has gathered the names of around 600 people who have climbed the Old Man of Hoy.Wanlockhead, in the Lowther Hills of Dumfries and Galloway, is Scotland's highest village, and it has Scotland's highest pub as well.Elizabeth Tindal, a Dark Skies Ranger in Galloway Forest Park, leads night walks that call on every sense, with marshmallows over a campfire to keep you warm.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.The Lewis Chessmen, found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides in 1831, include rooks carved as wild-eyed warriors biting their shields.The Scottish crossbill, a finch of the Highland pine forests, is the only bird in the world that lives in the UK and nowhere else.James Bond's father came from Glencoe, in the Highlands, a detail Ian Fleming added after Sean Connery played 007.The real Madame Doubtfire was Annabella Coutts, an Edinburgh clothes seller who lived in a basement with 30 cats.ShortbreadThe One O'Clock Gun at Edinburgh Castle began in 1861 so that ships at Leith could set their clocks when fog hid the time signal on Calton Hill.The concrete pylons along the causeway to Cramond Island were a boom against boats in the Second World War.The tune that greets the US president began in a poem set on which Scottish loch?The very first bottle of whisky from Nc'nean, a distillery on the Morvern peninsula, sold for £41,000 at a charity auction.Carbisdale Castle, near Bonar Bridge in Sutherland, has only three clock faces, and the story goes that the fourth was left off out of spite.Pink-footed geese were seen in Aberdeen.Ewan McKinnon leads the Arran Mountain Rescue Team, whose volunteers look after Goatfell, the island's so-called honeypot hill.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.Half of One, Isle of Skye.RubhaFor Mandy Maria, an artist who draws Scotland's mountains in soft pastel, a walk is almost psychedelic, because colour is what she notices most.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.Broughty Castle, at the mouth of the Tay in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, stayed vital to the defence of the nation right up to the end of the Second World War.In the old stories of Orkney and Shetland, a selkie is a seal that can slip off its skin and come ashore as a person.Subscribe to Hidden Scotland.Loch Affric, in the Highlands, has appeared in which Hollywood film?The wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan was a 17-year-old schoolboy on the Isle of Mull, washing pots in a restaurant, when he was offered a job filming in Sierra Leone.Morag, the monster of Loch Morar, is said to appear before a death or a drowning.No other castle in Britain has the shape of Caerlaverock, a triangle inside its moat, south of Dumfries.The Influence of the OutsideCromars, the St Andrews fish and chip shop, has opened a takeaway in Dundee.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 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 youngest prisoner of war held at Edinburgh Castle was six years old.A red kite was seen near Dumfries.Clare Campbell, founder of the Prickly Thistle tartan mill in Easter Ross, designed a tartan for Dennis the Menace's 70th birthday based on his striped jumper.The famous phone box at Pennan, from the film Local Hero, was a prop.Roslin Castle, hidden in the glen below Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, was built by the Sinclairs, one of the most powerful families in Scotland.The Black Shed: An Interview with Blair HunterA mountain toboggan track has been approved at Cairngorm Mountain, above Aviemore.Which of these means a striped cat in the Scottish Highlands is not a true wildcat?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.Kelvingrove was paid for by one exhibition and opened for the next?Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.Stories from Scotland.The story goes that a Norwegian princess strung a chain across this strait and charged every ship that passed.More than 3,000 seals have been counted on the sands at the mouth of the Ythan, north of Aberdeen.Robert Andrew, a photographer and mountain path builder, has photographed his crew for ten years on an old Hasselblad film camera with no batteries to fail in the cold.Places to Stay in Aberdeenshire with a Hot TubDistilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.Distilleries in the Isle of Skye.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.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'.Lost Shore Surf Resort, the inland surf park near Edinburgh, saw more than a million waves ridden in its second year.A red squirrel was seen in Oban.This is Kingshouse Hotel in autumn.Today calls for a castle.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 last islanders left the village on Hirta, St Kilda, far out in the Atlantic. In what year?King James IV, whose own family had banned golf, is recorded buying golf clubs and balls to play at St Andrews, in Fife, in 1504.Loch Doon Castle, in Ayrshire, was taken down stone by stone and rebuilt on the mainland in 1935.Give a magazine subscription.The wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan has filmed all over the world, but his best ever bottlenose dolphin encounter was just round the corner from Tobermory, on Mull.Issue 13 is out now.The Kelpies, at Falkirk, honour the Clydesdale, the working horse that powered Scottish industry.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: Muckle Flugga, the lighthouse rock off Unst in Shetland, is the northernmost point of the British Isles.Langholm in Dumfries and Galloway raised £4 million in a little over six months to buy its hills for a nature reserve.Euan Ramsay turned the old farm buildings of Newhall Mains, on the Black Isle, into a hotel with its own grass airstrip.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Restaurants and cafés in the Scottish Borders.Barnacle geese were seen in North Berwick.For ten days in 2004, the Black Rock Gorge at Evanton was a set for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.In 1892 Tommy Dewar set off round the world to sell his family's whisky, and threw bottles into the sea along the way.Guardswell Farm, in the Sidlaw Hills of Perthshire, has no wifi or TVs, because Anna Lamotte, who runs it, finds escaping the screen so restorative.Discover Borradill with owner and interior designer Claire MookerjeeIt is the last day of the Fife Arms Festival of Fashion.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.At The House in the Hill near Jedburgh, a family of foxes has raised its cubs on the land around the house.Donald Dinnie carried two boulders weighing 332kg together across the width of the bridge at Potarch, on Royal Deeside, in 1860.Guess where this is?Some good places to go, newly added to the site.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Things to do and tours in Dumfries and Galloway.Stephanie and her husband Ryan took on a derelict farm on the edge of North Berwick, in East Lothian, and now run a holiday cottage there called The Barn.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.True or false: Queen's View, looking west along Loch Tummel in Highland Perthshire, is named after Queen Victoria.