What to do in Scotland for a week?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Between June 16th and June 20th, my wife and I will be in Scotland. I’ve never been, she’s been to Edinburgh before. Any recommendations for what/where we should visit in that short time?

I’m tempted to head to Glasgow, as that is where my mother is from. The trick is, the towns where she was born and where she grew up have been completely engulfed by the city of Glasgow, so I’m not sure if I’ll get any sense of what it was like when she was there between 1923 and 1945/46.

I am told by many people that Glasgow is worth a visit, and that its reputation as a rough and tumble place with not much to recommend it is long out of date. That being said, I don’t know the city at all.

My wife is much more familiar with Edinburgh, and would have no difficulty filling our time there with ghost tours, castle visits, and Rebus tours.

What do the modern Dopers think?

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Distillery tour!

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I’ve been to Edinburgh twice. There is a boatload of stuff to do. The Royal Mile, the Castle, the Museum of Scotland, the Portrait Gallery, the ex Royal yacht Britannia, gin distillery, whisky distillery, Greyfriars , Kirkyard, ghost tours, lots of good restaurants and pubs, Holyrood.

I spent only a few hours in Glasgow so am not at all familiar with it.

4

If you’re looking to get a sense of Scottish life in the early 20th century, then the Tenement House museum in Glasgow might fit the bill.

https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/the-tenement-house

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I’d definitely suggest at least taking a day trip out of Edinburgh.
There are regular trains to Glasgow- there several an hour until late in the evening, just get an open day return, you don’t have to book. There are cheaper coaches which run all night, but the train is faster and more scenic.

Glasgow’s adorable subway system, the free botanical gardens (with a glasshouse you can get lost in) and a wide range of museums depending on your taste can easily fill an interesting few days and it’s well worth at least one.

It’s still got some rougher areas and it’s a lot more industrial and less tidy, but nowhere is ‘can’t walk down the street without getting stabbed’ rough. You can still expect a few drunks around, regardless of the time of day pretty much anywhere in Glasgow, but that’s about it. On the plus side, it has a livelier music scene and in many ways a more active, artsy culture than Edinburgh. If you’re interested in visiting where your Mum grew up, a lot of the buildings will likely still be there- and some of the older towns have kept their own identity and centres, it’s not homogenised like some places have.

Another option for a day trip, if you fancy somewhere a little quieter than Glasgow, is Stirling, which also has regular trains and is only about 45 minutes away. It has a better castle to visit than Edinburgh, in the opinion of most locals. Edinburgh castle has been so heavily adapted for tourism that although it looks amazing from the outside, it’s now almost a museum in a castle-shaped building, while Stirling castle is still a castle.

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Oh, hell to the ya! (and invite me)

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Lots of options so a lot depends on your interests, if your wife is familiar with Edinburgh does that mean it is full of places she wants to go to or places she has already been to and could go to again. Here are a few ideas outside of Edinbrugh:

Glasgow:

  • Kelvingrove Art Gallary and Museum
  • Riverside Museum of transport and travel
  • Botanic Gardens

Stirling:

  • Stirling Castle (as mentioned)
  • Site of the Battle of Bannockburn (portrayed at the end of Braveheart)

The Highlands: I think this is better than the cities for anything other than the first option you would probably want to hire a car

  • The West Highland line: A train line from Glasgow to Mallaig viewed as one of the most picturesque in the world, includes the viaduct that carried the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films. You can do the second half (from Fort William) in a steam train if you wish.
  • Glencoe / Glen Etive: Amazing landscape and site of the Glencoe massacre
  • Distilleries while you can find Distilleries near the cities I think the best are those in the highlands and islands.
  • The Islands, island life is quite different than on the mainland the pace of life is slower and many are much more traditional,nearly all have stunning scenery.
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When we visited Edinburgh in 2024, we did day trips to Stirling Castle and did the Jacobite steam train thing (which as noted can be done from Glasgow as well), plus a boat trip to Inchcolm Island.

In Edinburgh itself, we did a walking tour of Dean Village, which was really interesting too.

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Fantastic suggestions! Please keep them coming!

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You want more?

  • Perth (where I live) is regarded as the gateway to the Highlands, I don’t think it is worth a specific visit to the city but if you are passing the Perth museum has a really well done display of the Stone of Scone
  • Dundee:
    • Discovery Point is home to Endeavour, the ship that took Captain Scott to the Antarctic
    • Verdent Works, about Jute manufacturing in Dundee
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Just came home from 4 nights in Edinburgh (and 4 in London) on Sunday. It was our first time.

Obviously, different folks are going to be looking for different things out of their vacations, but here’s what we did of note:

Meals (And make reservations everywhere if you want to be sure of eating where you want to eat):

The Queens Arms - satisfied my desire to have a relaxed pub meal, have some pints, and just relax. Food was very good, as was the atmosphere.

Eleanore - really delicious prix fix 2 or 3 course meal. Close quarters bistro vibes, and perfectly done food. It felt akin to lots of restaurants I enjoy- contemporary ‘fine dining’ with a focus on local/seasonal ingredients.

Tipo - really excellent Italian in a light, airy space. It’s not ‘rustic’ Italian with dark colors, but clean, open, and contemporary. We walked in for lunch and were able to get a table, but I gather that this place is pretty in-demand, so definitely reservations.

Le Petit Raisin - we stopped here for a post-dinner drink and cheese plate one night. Great selection and a bartender who was really excited to talk about choices and cheese pairings.

Nishiki - Japanese. We mostly had sushi and sushi-adjacent items, which were all quite good.

The Ship on the Shore - we picked this place because we are suckers for a cold seafood tower/platter, and it did not disappoint. Everywhere else we ate had very modern vibes, but this place screamed “seafood restaurant from the 90s”… and not necessarily in a bad way. But yeah, really excellent cold seafood platter, and we saw some other dishes at tables that looked better and more vibrant than I might have expected based on the decor.

Experiences:

The Real Mary King’s Close - a well done tour of a street built over in the 1600s. A great way to get a perspective on Edinburgh history.

Royal Botanic Garden - gardens are one of my favorite things to visit on vacation. These were great (the glass houses are under restoration right now, however).

The People’s Story Museum - free museum on the Royal Mile. Excellent local history museum focusing on laborers and the working person, 1700s to today. We joked afterwards, “it was the Bernie Sanders museum”… but yes, it gives an interesting perspective on the impact of labor movements and reforms in Edinburgh.

The Royal Mile - The main road between Edinburgh Castle (uphill) and Holyrood Palace (downhill). This is tourism central, and got quite crowded. There were some more interesting shops and such on the cross streets/parallel streets (Cockburn St and Victoria St are two really scenic streets).

Topping & Company Booksellers - we also love visiting bookstores, and this one did not disappoint. There are many others as well, if that’s your thing.

We also did a bus tour one day, run by Rabbie’s. We did this tour, not every stop was worth it, but it brought us to Sterling Castle which was a worthwhile visit, and got us to see a bit of the countryside as well.

All in all, I really fell in love with Edinburgh, and would go back in an instant. There’s plenty of diverse experiences right “in town” that we didn’t even touch upon.

Two surprises:

-First, while nothing was cheap, I was pleased that even at the current exchange rate, prices felt similar to my local prices (or similar enough).

-It is farther north than I realized. We were never out very late, and it just stayed bright all the time. I don’t think we saw darkness at all while we were there (walking back to our hotel after 9PM and it was still quite daylight out, and sunrise was also incredibly early).

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I spent about a week and a half in Scotland back in 1998 (I was there for a wedding), and most of it was in the Aberdeen area. Highlights from there were Dunnottar Castle, Balmoral Castle, Crathes Castle, Castle Fraser , and Aberdeen itself.

Not far away was the Culloden battlefield, which at least on that morning, was one of the most eerie places I’ve ever been.

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If you do that, I’d suggest visiting Rosslyn Chapel. It is really amazing.

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We also did this falconry experience - the place is outside Edinburgh and it was a bit tricky to arrange transportation (we ended up getting a Uber out there, and the castle/hotel on the property got us a taxi to take us back), but it was very cool. You get to fly a few of the birds yourself.

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Toppings has a branch in St Andrews as well, which is also a nice place to visit. It’s got a very old university (founded 1413- my South American friend thought it was a typo) , a very pretty, but small centre, and lots and lots of golf related stuff. It’s maybe not worth a specific trip given how little time you have (unless you love golf), and annoyingly there is no direct train from Edinburgh, you have to get the bus from Leuchars or Dundee, but if you’re nearby it’s worth a stop.

Definitely skip the Kelpies; they’re nice enough, but what you see in a picture is all you’re getting. You spend 5 minutes going ‘Big metal sculptures of horse heads. Huh’, maybe take a couple of pictures and then you want to go somewhere else. I think the tour companies get kick backs for taking people.

Personally, I would highly recommend using public transport, especially the trains, over getting a tour if it’s an option, say for Stirling- not only does it mean you get to go at your own speed (and avoid getting stuck at a dull tourist trap), but the scenery is better on the train route than the motorways and main roads.

If you’re interested in hiking there’s a website/app- walkhighlands.co.uk which will give you gazillions of options, at pretty much every difficulty level, all over Scotland, including recommended routes within towns.

Oh, and sunset will be around 10pm, with dawn before 4:30am, so you’ll have plenty of daylight to fit things in!

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And it gets dark really slowly, it will be light enough to do things well after sunset, civil twilight (when street lights nominally come on) will be about 11pm in the central belt (11:30 if you go up to somewhere like Inverness or Aberdeen) and in Shetland it wont really get dark at all.

People don’t realise Edinburgh is further North than Ketchikan AK.

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The furthest north that I’ve ever been at the time of the (northern) summer solstice was Fort McMurray, Alberta. Edinburgh is slightly south of that (56 43’ 35" degrees north versus 55 57’ 12"), though north of Edmonton, Alberta (53 32’ 04"). I had to look up Kitchikan, Alaska (55 20’ 30")