Travel Guide to Scotland

Scotland: Why go

No-one goes to Scotland for the weather. But once you've stop bemoaning it, the drizzle has a charm of its own; and how well it suits the land of glassy loch and heathery glen beloved of Walter Scott and John Buchan. Though the huntin', fishin' and shootin' may be gracefully retiring to make way for the pastimes of a more modern age - sea kayaking, whale-watching, mountain biking - Scotland's golfing scene flourishes, its 556 courses ever green.

The Tourist Board plays up the heritage - the haggis and the whisky, the tartan and the tweed - and rightly so. But there are also the cultural quarters of dynamic Glasgow and handsome Edinburgh to discover, stroll-friendly cities both; or you may follow in Boswell's footsteps and tour the highlands and the islands, their untamed landscapes barely changed since his day. Scotland may not be window-box pretty or cowbell-tinkly like Switzerland, but there is a wildness and a barren-ness to it that is famously hard to resist once it gets under your skin.