Scottish Essentials

This comprehensive vacation gives you an insight into all five countries of the British Isles. Start your trip in England with visits to prehistoric Stonehenge, Salisbury with its famous cathedral, and the extraordinary excavations of the Roman Baths in Bath. Then travel to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, and through South Wales to board the ferry for the crossing to Ireland. Watch the craftsmen at work at the Waterford Crystal factory, admire the stallions at the Irish National Stud, and relax in Dublin, Ireland’s capital, before heading north past the Mountains of Mourne to vibrant Belfast.

Travel Scotland and take another ferry crossing takes you to Scotland and its capital city, Edinburgh, where a guided city tour includes a visit to Edinburgh Castle. The final highlights of this vacation include the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe’s magnificent Floors Castle, a walking tour through York, and last but not least, Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. You’ll arrive home with lots of stories and photos to share from your vacation to the British Isles.

Travel Scotland and go to Edinburgh, the inspiring capital of Scotland, is a historic, cosmopolitan and cultured city.

The setting is wonderfully striking; the city is perched on a series of extinct volcanoes and rocky crags which rise from the generally flat landscape of the Lothians, with the sheltered shoreline of the Firth of Forth to the north.

Travel Scotland and find Edinburgh Castle dominates the city-centre skyline and from its ramparts you can look down on medieval lanes and elegant, sweeping terraces that hold over a thousand years of history, mystery and tradition. Yet you will also see a modern, dynamic capital where international festivals attract the world's leading performers, galleries display cutting-edge art, and bars, restaurants and clubs create a lively, cosmopolitan atmosphere with a distinctly Scottish twist. 'Edinburgh,' said writer Robert Louis Stevenson, 'is what Paris ought to be'.