Romantic Lowlands. Following in the footsteps of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns: Gothic abbey ruins, shattered castles, old border towns.
The most beautiful approach to Scotland is via the ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle upon Tyne in northeastern England. This is where Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman border, begins, and it ends in Carlisle in northwestern England. It was used by the Romans to control the Pict and Scot invasions from today’s Scotland. Over a thousand years later, there are still many ruins that bear witness to the wars between the English and the Scotch, such as the Caerlaverock Castle near Dumfries and numerous defensive towers such as Smailholm Tower in the rolling and charming Lowlands or Southern Uplands, as the area up to the Edinburgh-Glasgow line is called. Compared to the widely uninhabited open spaces of the highlands, the Lowlands are characterised by beautiful towns like Melrose, Jedburgh and Kelso. Romantic medieval abbey ruins tell of South Scotland’s Catholic past, small country roads call out to cyclists and the Southern Uplands Way is a haven for hikers. The Lowlands are split into the western Dumfries region and Galloway as well as the eastern Borders. In the West one can travel in the footsteps of national poet Robert Burns, from his birthplace in Alloway near Ayr to his last residence in Dumfries. The coasts of Galloway made temperate by the Gulf Stream and the Galloway Forest Park are definitely worth a visit. The romantic novels of Sir Walter Scott entice the visitor into the Borders; the novels he wrote at his residence in Abbotsford continue to tempt travellers to Scotland by the millions.
