Experience the best of Stirling

Stirling stands on the River Forth in central Scotland, where the lowlands meet the Highlands, and its medieval old town climbs a steep hill to Stirling Castle. The castle, a royal residence of the Stewart kings, has a Renaissance palace, a great hall and views across the plain. Below it, the Church of the Holy Rude, where the infant James VI was crowned in 1567, and the stone Old Stirling Bridge recall the city's past.

The National Wallace Monument, a Victorian tower on Abbey Craig, commemorates the victory over the English at Stirling Bridge in 1297, and the Bannockburn site, south of the city, marks Robert the Bruce's victory in 1314. Doune Castle, Dunblane Cathedral and the spa town of Bridge of Allan lie close by, while Loch Lomond and the Trossachs begin to the west and the Ochil Hills rise to the east.

Scottish staples fill the old inns: haggis with neeps and tatties, Cullen skink, a smoked-haddock soup, and shortbread, with malt whisky from distilleries across central Scotland. Summers have long light evenings, heather turns the hills purple in August, and winters are cold.