Focus on Scotlands Cities

The six Scottish cities offer all kinds of contrasts in townscape, shops and nightlife. From Edinburgh with its heritage and dramatic setting, to Inverness, the bustling Highland capital, a Scottish city trip is certainly rewarding. Good transport links make it even easier.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh's skyline makes a magnificent first impression. The grand outline of Edinburgh Castle on its steep rock, the line of crags which guard Arthur's Seat, the city's mountain in miniature, and the neo-classical columns and monuments decorating Calton Hill all add to the unique setting. This distinctive and dramatic city is one of the most instantly recognisable in all of Europe. And, if the city makes an unforgettable initial impact - it gets even better.

The main centre divides in two: the Old Town, running down the ridge from the Castle to the Palace of Holyroodhouse; and the New Town, with its wide streets and elegant 18th-century facades, spreading northwards from Princes Street, the very heart of Scotland's capital.

Walk the Royal Mile, the collective name for the series of streets which join castle and royal palace in the Old Town, and you truly walk in the footsteps of Scottish history - from the time of Mary Queen of Scots and the Stewart monarchy of old, right up to today's Scottish Parliament.

In contrast to the narrow streets and crowded ambience of the oldest part of the city, the elegant New Town offers a very different experience of the city. Visit the Georgian House in Charlotte Square for a glimpse of life 18th century Edinburgh. The city was then in the throes of the Scottish Enlightenment, a great intellectual renaissance which made Edinburgh a centre for both literature and science which it remains today.

As the setting for the Edinburgh International Festival, the largest arts festival in the world, the city buzzes in August and September. Not just the "official" festival and the Festival Fringe demand attention, but also the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The Esplanade, the Edinburgh Castle parade ground, is the setting for this entertaining fusion of martial skills and musical.

However, Edinburgh is a superb all-year destination, with a thriving cultural life, shopping and entertainment choice. Right through the year a wide range of galleries, for example, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Dean Gallery, add to the cultural options. Major arts venues such as the Festival Theatre, the Royal Lyceum and the contemporary style of the Traverse Theatre all play their part in Edinburgh's year-round artistic richness.

Edinburgh has a wealth of informative and entertaining museums, with the Museum of Scotland as a flagship. Museums are just one heading in a long list of places to see, ranging from the popular Britannia, the former royal yacht, to the all-season delights of the Royal Botanic Garden, only minutes from the city centre. Dynamic Earth, tracing the life of earth from the Big Bang of its origin to the present day, is a recent popular addition to the city's attractions.

Edinburgh boasts more restaurants per head of population than anywhere else in Scotland, as well as plenty of pubs, cafes and bistros - just as you would expect in such a cosmopolitan city. Scotland's new Parliament has further added to the sense of excitement within the capital.

Edinburgh is the place to enjoy the leading edge of Scottish culture along with the setting for so much of the history of the Scottish nation itself. Glasgow When it comes to sheer panache, the upfront personality of Glasgow, the largest city in Scotland, is unrivalled in Scotland.

Glasgow

Glasgow does not simply follow fashion - it creates its own. Right at the beginning of the 1990s, Glasgow won the accolade "City of Culture". Since then, the city has gone from strength to strength, building a reputation as a destination where a great experience is guaranteed if the visitor seeks culture, good food, fun and company, an all-day shopping experience - or a little of all of these.

Glasgow has for long been a city where trading, commerce and entrepreneurial skills were valued. From its origins round its 12th-century Cathedral (with many surviving original features), Glasgow expanded west, gradually creating the grid of streets now known as the Merchant City. This is a reference to the early merchants who traded with the Americas - just one of the many stories told in the People's Palace - in a collection covering everything from tobacco trading to temperance and the suffragette movement.

These early traders led in turn to the later Victorian (19th century) expansion of the city. Glasgow is still sometimes known as Britain's greatest Victorian city because of the legacy of handsome buildings still to be admired around the city centre.

Another symbol of Glasgow,s former life as a great trading port is the Tall Ship at Glasgow Harbour. Built in 1896, she is now one of only five Clyde-built sailing ships afloat. On board displays tell her story, evoking the epic trading voyages which helped create Glasgow,s wealth.

Across the water, the Glasgow Tower marks the site of Glasgow Science Centre, with four floors of fascinating science exhibits and experiments (great for children) plus a breathtaking IMAX screen.

The Burrell Collection in Pollok Country Park is typical of the city's cultural attractions. Part of the experience of this eclectic display of art objects from across the world is enjoying the award-winning building in which they are housed. Enjoying both the architecture and the contents is also the theme at the Lighthouse, right in the heart of Glasgow, where a building designed by the famous Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh now houses a variety of changing exhibitions on art and architecture.

Another cultural hotspot right in the centre is the Gallery of Modern Art, moments from Buchanan Street. Set in the neo-classical elegance of the former Royal Exchange, living artists' work from across the world is featured. Glasgow comes second in the UK's retail ranking index, beaten only by the West End in London, confirming Scotland's largest city's status as a top shopping destination.

Shops range from High Street names to the exclusive and unusual. The main concentration of shops on streets such as Sauchiehall Street, Buchanan Street and Argyll Street are pedestrian-friendly, while covered malls like the Buchanan Galleries and the St Enoch Centre are right in the heart of town as well.

Exclusivity is the theme of the Princes Square development, with its glass-roofed airy ambience, while the Italian Centre a little way to the east is another parade of top fashion and design labels. In between lies the Merchant City, trading on its solid reputation for innovative retailing, while its bars and cafes earn its description as the city's "Left Bank"

At the other end of the shopping scale, the "Barras" (Barrowland) offers the flea-market experience, with the chance of a bargain always at the next stall. Sampling Glasgow's cuisine will take time. Look at any listing of bars, bistros and brasseries at the informal end of the eating spectrum and you will find pages and pages to choose from. Mexican, American, Italian, Indian, French - all can be found, plus the best of contemporary Scottish cuisine drawing on local ingredients.

Other refreshment stops range from traditional pubs to coffee houses. It is in these that visitors will meet another aspect of the city: the friendliness of the locals. Upfront and outgoing, Glasgow people simply want you to enjoy their city.

Aberdeen

Aberdeen Scotland's third city sparkles in silver and grey granite. In olden times, the city had strong trading links with Scandinavia and the Low Countries across the North Sea. Then its maritime story moves on to the building of fast clipper ships to bring tea home from India - the city's Maritime Museum tells the story, as well as portraying the city's modern role as a centre for oil and gas exploration.

Aberdeen offers the unexpected. Despite its northern position, it is a favoured spot for rose-growing - a fact that has brought prosperity for generations of rose nurserymen. The city is famed not only for roses, but for a season-long floral display from the first crocus to the last crimson leaf of autumn. And, even in the very depth of winter, there is always the warmth of the Winter Gardens in the city's Duthie Park, which some say at two acres (one hectare) is the largest covered display in Europe.

The University's Cruickshank Botanic Garden is another horticultural treasure well worth seeking out (in Old Aberdeen) and there is a good range of other city parks, including Seaton Park beside the River Don and Hazlehead with an old-established maze.

Yet another side to the city can be discovered by exploring the university connection in Old Aberdeen. "Town and gown" in the north has been around since 1494 when King's College was founded. Its elegant crown spire has been a local landmark since around 1500. (Discover more at the multi-media King's College Centre.) A century later Marischal College was founded, the two colleges combining to form Aberdeen University in 1860.

Today the main attraction of Marischal College for visitors is the Marischal Museum, a treasury of north-east material, found beyond the breathtaking facade of the 'modern' Marischal College (1891), notable as the second-largest granite building in the world. With two miles (three kilometres) of sands, between the mouths of the Rivers Dee and Don, and even more, northwards beyond the Don, Aberdeen once claimed the title as Scotland,s largest seaside holiday resort.

Today in Aberdeen the traditional seaside holiday has been spectacularly upgraded into an all-action sport, fun and leisure menu with something for everyone. Under the banner of Aberdeen Fun Beach, the length of the promenade is backed by a whole range of attractions: bars, cafe-restaurants, a golf complex, leisure centre, ice arena, a multiplex cinema, nightclub, plus the largest permanent fun fair in Scotland.

Aberdeen is a prosperous city, a fact soon noticed by visitors enjoying not only the shopping choice but also the range of places to eat and drink. Pubs and restaurants take many themes and embrace a range of cuisine from traditional Scottish to eastern and exotic.

You can sample the city's cultural life in a range of venues from His Majesty's Theatre, one of the finest Edwardian theatres in Scotland, through to venues like the Lemon Tree, where all the newest sounds can be heard.You can catch high-grade folk music at some of the local pubs, while the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is a regular performer in the city's Music Hall.

Stirling

Scotland acquired its newest city only in March 2002 - but Stirling certainly lives up to its status if history and heritage, entertainment and things to see are some of the criteria. Like Edinburgh, it has a castle on a dominating rock. Also, like Edinburgh, it was the scene of the old Scottish royal court - and it even has an Old Town, which again, like the capital's, lies just below the castle esplanade.

In the castle itself, at the highest point of the town, there is plenty to see including the outstanding renaissance architecture of the Palace built by King James V (1538-42), and also the restored Great Hall. There are superb views from the ramparts down the Forth Valley to the east and to the mountains of the north and west.

In short, Stirling is the place for Scottish atmosphere, where the signs of the old Scottish burgh (a town with trading rights granted by the king) help create a sense of history - Stirling's Mercat Cross, Tolbooth and the Church of the Holy Rude are old symbols of commerce, the law and religion, and add to the picturesque setting of the Old Town. (There is more atmosphere to discover in the Old Town Jail, where costumed actors bring to life crime and punishment through the ages.)

You can learn a lot about Scotland's history in a visit to Stirling - especially at the Wallace Monument (more great views) which recalls the exploits of one of Scotland's heroes, William Wallace. Take in the Bannockburn Heritage Centre for the tale of the Battle of Bannockburn, fought here in 1314 between the armies of Scotland and England.

However, Stirling is also an up to date and go-ahead city with a good range of shopping centres and places to eat. And it makes a great base for discovering the lochs and hills of the scenic Trossachs area, just minutes away to the west.

Dundee

Under the banner, "City of Discovery", Dundee is quite a happening place. The discovery part refers to RRS Discovery, built in Dundee in 1901, and the polar exploration ship used by Captain Scott in his last ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. It is berthed at Discovery Point, the centrepiece of an excellent visitor centre telling the story of the ship. (The common theme between polar exploration and Dundee is actually whaling and the building of whaling vessels -a trade for which the city was famed about a century and a half ago.)

However, this is just one of many themes to trace in Dundee's heritage. Discover another at the Verdant Works, a fascinating attraction built in a former jute mill. This tells the story of the city's now much diminished involvement in jute textiles, by way of lots of historical artefacts, tableaux and hands-on activities. Sensation is Dundee's Science Centre, also a splendid diversion for children, with yet more hands-on experiments in the field of life sciences.

Adjacent is Dundee Contemporary Arts. This flagship venue in the city's "cultural quarter" is a focus for the city's cultural life and offers a gallery, studio, exhibition space, cinema and cafe-bar meeting place all at once. For more cultural fixes, the McManus Galleries holds a superb Scottish Victorian art collection, while Dundee's Repertory Theatre is home to Scotland's only permanent ensemble company.

With a good range of shopping and a fine reputation for night life, Dundee is also a great base to explore the Angus hinterland, notably the peaceful and empty Angus Glens running to the Grampian mountains to the northwest of the city. Inverness For long known as the "Capital of the Highlands", Inverness is a thriving and bustling place at the northern end of the Great Glen, the great valley running between Scotland's east and west coasts and carrying road and canal links.

Inverness

As a natural route centre, Inverness has for long serviced its Highland hinterland and, as a new city for the 21st century, is modern and go-ahead in outlook, with a surprising nightlife, as well as excellent shopping and entertainment choice. As a touring centre it is unsurpassed - east to the golf courses, beaches and dolphin sightings along the Moray Firth, southwest to Loch Ness and even more mysterious creatures - perhaps - while to the north and west lie the unsurpassed grandeur of the Northern Highlands.

Road and rail links are good so that the city makes a great base for reaching even the western seaboard.