The Accidental Analyst asks, is a holiday in Scotland worth it?

And if so, why would you choose to do it?

“We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more worries for a week or two” sang Cliff Richard in the film (or movie if you’re a young person) released in 1963. Back then holidays in the UK were pretty much all we had and the idea of a package break in Spain or France had yet to take hold. Fast forward sixty years and all the news is of problems getting to exotic destinations around the world as passport e-gates stop working, airline IT systems collapse, the exchange rate has tanked and everyone is trying to leave at the same time. All of that for a week, maybe two, in the sun, maybe, on a beach where the Germans have not yet put their towels on the sun loungers and where, hopefully, the waiters all speak English.

But what of the new “staycation” craze? During the Covid-19 pandemic, when travel was a criminal offence, we apparently rediscovered the delights of our own country and, ker-pow, the costs of cottages in Cornwall went stratospheric. The south and west of England has always been popular in the height of summer, as have other scenic destinations such as the Lake District, Snowdonia, the Norfolk broads, Yorkshire Dales and the Cotswolds to mention a few.

So what about that strange kingdom north of Hadrian’s Wall? Or “Chilly Jock-o Land” as my Hampshire neighbour used to call it. How did that fare? Were people enticed? Enchanted? Exasperated? Exhausted? And now that we can, at least on paper, travel freely again, given a free choice, would anyone come to Scotland on holiday?

I was prompted to write this (although to be open about it, the subject has been bugging me for a while) by a recent opinion piece in the Sunday Times (Scottish edition) written by Alex Bell, claiming that Scottish holidays were too cheap. Yes, you read that correctly. He argued that Scotland was giving its charms away too cheaply and that the soon to be imposed tourist tax by the shiny new First Minister was a good thing and overdue because it meant that Scots finally valued their country.

So, I think we need to test this hypothesis and see if it is wearing anything under its kilt. As before, I will state my own position for the avoidance of bias accusations. I live in Scotland, by choice. I love the countryside, the clarity of the light, the vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness within easy reach and I like the, generally, easy going friendliness of the Scottish people. I’ve been around a lot of it but not yet to the main offshore islands of the Hebrides, Orkneys or Shetland, apart from Skye, Islay and Mull.

Therefore, what you will read here is a reasonably objective assessment, shorn of the romantic ideals of many Scots and of those who come here in search of something the Visit Scotland people have put together. No tartan, no shortbread, no whisky, no bagpipes and most definitely no KILTS! You may be shocked, offended, amazed or none of these things. But you will be better informed.

To make it more digestible, I will de-construct it a bit into “accommodation”, “food”, “facilities” and “countryside” across mostly rural parts north of the central belt, with then a specific section on the capital, Edinburgh, because that attracts more people than probably the rest of the country combined. Sorry Glasgow, European city of culture in 1990 and all that.

Accommodation

One of the bizarre points that Alex Bell made in his column was that the 15% commission charged by airbnb and other listing sites was sucking money out of the economy into the hands of tax avoiding private companies. Well, that commission is paid by the owner not by the guest. And typically, airbnb lets do not charge VAT, as the people owning them don’t generate enough revenue to be liable for it. But he completely failed to mention that every other hotel, B&B, campsite, caravan park etc all have to add 20% VAT as mandated by the UK Government. No doubt at all if this was a matter for the Scottish Government that would be cranked up.

That same 20% VAT is levied on every meal and every drink you buy at a bar or hotel, all adding money to the UK coffers. The amount taken by booking sites is a rounding error by comparison. He also overlooked that VAT on a hotel stay in Germany is 7% or in Luxembourg it is 3%. So just think how much more attractive Scotland might be with those rates of VAT?

Adding a tourist tax is all well and good and as Mr. Bell points out, correctly for once, it is common place across Europe. He asserts that because it stays around €1-€2 per day per person it’s never going to be a deterrent. Really? If he really thinks that the Scottish Government won’t ever think to increase it then he is being exceptionally naive. IPT was introduced at 3%. It is now 20%. But we digress - the main point to consider is that, regardless of taxes and levies, accommodation in Scotland is expensive.

Self-catering on one of the islands in summer will easily set you back £1200 a week for a modest cottage. A stay in a high-end hotel will comfortably relieve you of a cool £250 a night - rising to considerably more than that at peak times.

Mid-range hotels that are not part of a chain like Mercure, IHG etc. can comfortably be £150 a night. More in the capital. And that is room only. Add in all the other extras like breakfast and your week’s holiday starts to look a wee bit pricey.

Now, I’m not a big fan of long stays (i.e. more than one night) in a hotel and I don’t like B&Bs much either. I tend to self-cater and by way of comparison I can get a very nice cottage in France, three bedrooms, for around £600 a week, a bit more if it has a pool or is near the beach or it’s half term. I can get a superb 4* hotel in Bruges for €170 a night. I can get a 4* hotel in Germany for €100 a night.

The good news is that Scottish hotels are not the nightmare they once were. The standards of house-keeping and the quality of the rooms have improved beyond recognition, as indeed has the level of service. So I think I can say that unless you are unlucky, your accommodation in Scotland will be OK. But you might just be somewhat gobsmacked at how much you have to pay compared to similar establishments across Europe. Don’t worry about commissions to agencies or costs of contactless payments - they are not your problem - but do be justifiably horrified at how much the Government is screwing you for the pleasure of your company.

However, to end on a “positive” note, wild camping is allowed in many parts of Scotland and it’s free. With the right to roam established, you can go almost anywhere. Some popular spots, such as Loch Tummel, have had to introduce various controls as a lot of damage was being done by careless individuals lighting fires or leaving some fairly unpleasant waste behind for others to clear up. There are codes of practice notices posted on many roadsides and it is good to see that this has cut down on congestion on narrow single-track roads. But a stubborn minority continue to behave as if the laws or even common decency don’t apply to them. The pervasive presence of litter along Scottish roadsides is sad evidence of that mindset.

Food

As you travel around Scotland you will start to notice a lot of claims about “A Taste of Scotland” or “Fresh, local seasonal ingredients” and “Scotland’s world class larder”. Here is where the hype and the reality, like the high road and the low road, diverge considerably. Basically, what this great larder comes down to is beef, venison and lamb, some cheese and the inevitable haggis. Yes, in summer there will be some soft fruit like strawberries and raspberries nurtured in the polytunnels along the river Tay near Dundee or in Fife, maybe some local potatoes (a large crop due from the fields close to me this year) and of course salmon. Not the wild caught variety - that is almost all put back in the river from which it’s caught (Tay and Spey are the main ones) - but farmed. Just like the stuff you see all over the country in supermarkets.

Some of it is cured, smoked or otherwise processed around the country in many excellent smoke houses but virtually all of it comes from farms, some in seawater lochs, some offshore. That’s why you see it all year round.

Scotland is also renowned for shell fish - langoustine and scallops. But good luck in trying to find them. They mostly leave the country to Spain and France and are almost impossible to buy in a shop of any kind at a price anyone can afford. I have had diver-caught Shetland scallop at a local restaurant. £9 for one. But it was in a nice garlic jus.

So if you are seeking to gorge yourself on this famous food, I think you will struggle. Most of what we get here is from supermarkets and whilst, somewhat ironically, it is the Germans who have the best selection of Scottish produce, the main UK outlets will serve up the same stuff you can get anywhere. Tesco in Inverness is not a lot different to any other Tesco store.

There are some individual providers who can offer a decent range of the above (apart from fish where that is usually sold from mobile fishmongers operating out of Arbroath, Anstruther or even Peterhead). And perhaps in the major cities of Edinburgh or Glasgow where there is a sufficiently large local market to justify having something other than salmon, cod, haddock and herring, you can expect a decent choice but in reality, out in the sticks (which is most of Scotland) you’re basically screwed.

But of course, not everyone wants, or is able, to cook any of this produce and end up with an edible result. In which case you will eat out so let me turn my attention to the hospitality sector and what you might encounter if you venture into a pub, café, hotel, restaurant etc. in expectation of a real treat for your taste buds.

What I am about to recount will no doubt irritate those easily irritated or who have an inflated perception of the food scene based on reviews they’ve read and the PR lines they have ingested. But ask yourself, who would you rather believe? Someone who has a vested interest in promoting Scotland as the gastronomic miracle of Western Europe, or someone who is probably just like you - looking for a half decent meal for a reasonable price served by agreeable and competent humans in an acceptably comfortable setting?

I do not profess to be an expert critic or to have toured every single part of the country or to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of cooking and the restaurant trade. But I’ve been around and had a fair range of grub from Perth WA to Perth, Perthshire. Although I have lived here full time for four years now, I have been coming to Scotland on and off since arriving in 1972 as an undergraduate in St. Andrews when you could get eight pints of “heavy” and a haggis supper for under a pound. With change.

In a nutshell, the eating out experience in Scotland is disappointing against the expectations set above. I have really struggled to find a place that I could happily go to each week and enjoy a meal I could not cook at home without breaking the bank. What you can expect is essentially the same menu at almost every establishment, or variations thereon. Of course, in the poncier parts of Edinburgh where chefs like Tom Kitchin and Nick Nairn have carved an excellent name for themselves, you can get “fine dining” on a par with other major cities. Where the chefs do a wee bit more than just plonking a lump of protein, a dollop of sauce and a few over cooked veggies on a plate for an outrageous sum of money.

It has been a source of great and persistent disappointment to see that when “fresh local seasonal” produce is trumpeted on websites, what you actually get is none of the above. How can you claim that when your menu never changes? How can you claim that when most of your ingredients arrive on the back of a Brake Bros truck? How can you claim that when you don’t even have an actual qualified chef in the kitchen?

Let me give you some examples. Every menu has Haggis Bon Bons. Little balls of mass-produced haggis in breadcrumbs then deep fried. The guy who “invented” them is a millionaire. Every pub/hotel has fish & chips with mushy peas, burger and chips, mac & cheese, chicken breast with some kind of sauce, venison casserole and so on. None of this is cheap either. A popular tourist bar in Pitlochry charges £18.95 for its Highland Burger. A bowl of Cullen Skink (haddock chowder) will set you back £11. So a simple meal of a soup and a burger in an average pub in a typical tourist town is £30. For one person. A family of four won’t get much change out of £100 once the kids have had a few overpriced fizzy drinks.

OK they claim the beef is Aberdeen Angus and provided by a local family butcher. I refuse to shop in said butcher’s outlet near me because their main offering seems to be pies and the display of meat is underwhelming and unattractive.

What happens when you move upmarket? There is a very well-regarded hotel in a “Royal” village where rooms can cost £750 a night, luckily including breakfast. Should you care to dine in their bar, you will see items like fish & chips & mushy peas for £23, sausage and mash for £16 or a sirloin steak, pepper sauce, chips & salad for £38. Fancy a beer to wash it down? That’ll be £7 a pint. It laughingly states the menu is subject to change because of “seasonality” yet that menu has not altered in over a year. Venture into the posh bit and you can dive into an Orkney Scallop for £24 or a duck pithivier (for two) at £120.

I realise this is an extreme example price-wise but you have to concede if you’re going to be parted from the best part of a grand for a night away, including dinner and a few beverages, you would expect something truly spectacular.

Down in the mid-market the picture is no less bleak; just not as expensive. There seems to be an acceptance that ambition and imagination are not required to run an eatery. All you have to do is fill bellies and those that require filling are not overly concerned with what it is they eat as long as there is plenty of it and it doesn’t cost too much. I have heard and observed that attitude almost everywhere I go. The handful of establishments that try to plough a different furrow are dismissed as being too snobby or too posh or not having proper portions. Yet despite that massive mid-range which is just a thousand variations on the same theme, I will say this. The people are very friendly and if you do raise an issue, it is always dealt with swiftly and positively via a combination of the offending item being removed from your bill and an alternative offered at no cost.

It’s relatively easy to explain this attitude. The resident year-round population, compared to the summer visitors is small. So they tend to cater menu wise for the people on holiday, which outside of Edinburgh and those very upmarket hotels, is not able to splash out on expensive food every night. And their expectations are relatively low so that is what is offered. And I do not blame them for doing it as they are in business to make money, so filling tables each night and having happy customers who return is a smart move - for the business. When the summer season winds down it is the locals, like me now, who keep them going and again the same analysis applies. Scotland is simply not as prosperous as the fancy schmancy parts of England and so eating out is a different experience. I get that.

But what IS depressing is that if you do once in a while feel like having something a bit better, something you really cannot cook yourself, it would be nice to have a real choice and not have to drive hours to get there. There’s a superb place about 2 hours away, right on the Loch and where the seafood is fresh out of the loch that day. It’s cooked with real skill, tastes divine and is served with some panache in a simple setting with a Scandi vibe. We go there about once a year -it’s only open for lunch, not dinner. That, and one other hotel, are about the only two places that break the mould. I find that very sad. And part of the reason was explained to me by a friend who was a head chef for 45 years. Nobody wants to cook now. It’s too hard, too tiring, and not well paid. The restaurants can’t find the right people in the kitchen, so they tailor (i.e. dumb down) the menu to make it work for people without the better level of culinary skills. As long as you can deep fry, operate a microwave or boil in the bag, that’s fine as all the prep is done by your catering supplier. Once you see it that way, then it all makes sense - on one level. Just not the level of having someone do some actual cheffing to produce an original dish.

Again, to end on a positive note, the one slice of the eating out experience that has improved hugely in Scotland is the cafés. If you just want a simple coffee and cake, or a freshly cooked dish or sandwich, and served in a cosy, warm and friendly environment, then a Scottish café is a good bet. We’ve stumbled over loads of them and have returned to many.

Overall, a case of “close but no cigar”. The really frustrating aspect for me is that it could be so much better. But the Scots seem bogged down in the mire of mediocrity and indifference. Nobody really tries too hard and they seem happy to be average. Or maybe they are crying out to be better and just need some training or guidance. Generally, the standard has improved in some ways but it still lacks a real identity or a real purpose - so, if you are looking for something uniquely Scottish in style or the food offered, set phasers to “disappointment”.

Facilities

It has been said that people come to Scotland for three reasons. Scenery, friendly people and heritage. I can vouch for the first two and there are many whose ancestors were Scots and who come back to trace their roots. The Clan systems and their strong connections certainly add to the feeling of “being Scottish”, especially when you can have your own tartan. But once you’ve gawped at or climbed the scenery, had some conversations with the locals (even if you don’t quite get what they’re saying) and found out where your granny came from, then what? What is there to actually do in Scotland?

What seems to be on the increase are more of the active pursuits such as cycling, golf, kayaking/rafting, climbing, paddle boarding and the like. Usually requiring a wet suit or Lycra or both - well, maybe not on the golf course. Of course, there are more genteel versions with plenty of walking trails, usually well marked and with places to watch the wildlife, of which there is an abundance if you know where to look. (We have had red and other deer, red squirrels and brown hares in our garden, beavers and otters in the river 300 metres away, Golden Eagles, buzzards, red kites, goshawks all overhead, pine marten and stoat and much else observed close by).There are organised whale watching trips on the Moray Firth, Land Rover safaris in Dull (yes, really - and paired with Boring, Oregon in a stroke of ironic genius), bird watching for Ospreys at RSPB sites and guides for a number of pastimes from historical to artistic in many towns.

All well and good if you are an adult. But how on earth do you cater for today’s children? If they are resistant to the joys of nature or not really keen on touring their fourth castle in a week and can’t / won’t take to wheels or a paddle, then your options are fewer. No Disney, no Center Parcs (although Crieff Hydro claims to offer similar but anecdotal reports suggest otherwise), no Alton Towers etc. Is that a bad thing? It depends on your idea of a holiday and how you deal with children used to less active forms of entertainment. All I can say it, do your homework and be sure that you can deal with what is here, and not come a cropper when something you expected simply doesn’t exist.

One facility that is fairly basic is public transport. The railway system is not what you would call extensive and being brutally frank here, Scotrail leaves a lot to be desired in terms of quality and comfort. Many of the places you might consider visiting are not on the rail network. St. Andrews for one. Most of the interior of the highlands has no railway - largely due to the terrain. So if you are planning to use trains, be ready to use buses to get you the last few miles. Often, a bus can be a better option especially over long distances such as Inverness to Glasgow. But overall the coverage is patchy and infrequent. The various providers are not joined up so planning a journey that involves bus and train, or maybe even a ferry to the islands will require considerable logistical skills. Not even Michael Portillo with his well thumbed Bradshaw’s guide would manage it.

Ultimately most people just resort to a car or a motor home as then you can go as you please. Except that on longer distance routes the services can be few and far between, and not always open. If you’re doing it the modern trendy way in an EV you will need to plan very carefully as the charging network is rudimentary at best. Once you get north of Stirling or Perth, the motorway network stops. And it is fair to say that Scotland’s roads are not the best in terms of maintenance with many of them badly pitted and broken. The terrain prevents direct routes north so the main artery, the A9, winds its way as far as Thurso, sometimes dual carriageway, mostly not. Once you leave such roads you will encounter many single-track roads. These are fine mostly, as long as you manage the passing place protocols. Much amusement, and no small amount of frustration, can be had from observing drivers unused to this arrangement trying to navigate their way around a gap not quite wide enough for two cars.

In summary then, facilities in Scotland are fewer than elsewhere and what ones there tend to be of the “functional” variety rather than luxurious. That does not have to be a problem if you come prepared and with appropriate expectations. What usually happens is that visitors are so wowed by the beauty of the countryside that they overlook or forgive that what they are being served up isn’t in the same class as what they are looking at.

Countryside

Scotland has been rated as the most beautiful country in the world. I don’t know who decides that or what their criteria are so it’s a pretty bold claim and one that has a lot of competition from other visually beautiful places, such as New Zealand or Switzerland or Norway. I’m in no position to judge as there are many places I have not been but I will definitely accept that Scotland has something very special and magical in its landscape.

When people talk about this of course they usually refer to the more majestic and remote areas of the Highlands. Let me pause for a moment to clarify this as the term “Highlands” is bandied about without really knowing what it is. Geologically, the Highlands are actually very different from the rest of Scotland because the country was formed by the collision between two different land masses a few billion years ago. The dividing line is where they joined and it basically runs from South West to North East through Loch Ness. You will notice as you head past this point that the mountains start to look different to the ones further south. That’s because they ARE different.

To confuse matters a bit, there are several other mountainous areas that are “high lands” but not THE Highlands. For example, I live in Highland Perthshire but woe betide me should I refer to this part of the county as “the Highlands”. You will be gently corrected. Over time of course the culture of the old Highlanders has infused further south so that you’ll still see very similar evidence in things like the Athol Highlanders, the only private army in the UK.

None of this detracts from the fabulous views on offer. The juxtaposition of lochs, mountains, rivers and trees has a special quality that is utterly mesmerising. You can enjoy a lot of it from the road - indeed the A82 through Glencoe will have you running out of superlatives very quickly - but really, you need to leave the car behind and set off on foot.

Only that way will you experience the things the guidebooks can’t show. The purity of the air and the clarity of light for one. Everything seems sharper and more three dimensional. The scale of the landscape will fill your head in a way that no photograph ever can. And then if you walk just a wee bit further you will experience something else you may not have expected. Complete and utter silence. Not just the absence of mechanical or human noise but a profound and all enveloping stillness that tells you you’re in the middle of something ancient and untouched. It really is the “sound of silence”.

Nature can be pretty raw here and you are likely to see and hear things you will not witness anywhere else. The abundance of wild flowers that all come into bloom in sequence - hillsides blanketed in foxgloves, riverbanks smothered in thistles, wild garlic, wood sorrel, bluebells in a profusion you won’t believe in the dappled shade of beech trees, heather erupting into purple and the ever-changing bracken which turns copper and gold as winter approaches.

It is a paradise for bird watchers too. You may not see a Golden Eagle but you will possibly hear one and learn to distinguish its call from buzzards. All manner of native and migratory birds, depending on where you are and what time of year, are a feast for the ears and eyes.

Aside from mountains Scotland has a pretty amazing coastline with beaches that could easily be in the Caribbean - until you go for a dip. Incredible cliffs and rock formations, long sandy beaches, tiny little coves and picture-perfect villages clinging to the land. These are places built to withstand everything nature can throw at them, not for aesthetic value - although there is a rugged charm to many of them. The islands have their own appeal but getting there can be a challenge. Only Skye has a bridge; all the others rely on ferries, which can be part of the adventure of course. Assuming they are operational (not a given with Caledonian Macbrayne).

I could go on. But you will never see it all. Even in four years of going up the same Glen every week, it is different every time. Things change in a day. A bit of rain quickly fills up the burns and streams that drain the hillsides and feed the rivers and before you know it, you have spectacular waterfalls and rapids. One thing is for sure, in terms of scenic beauty, Scotland lands knockout punches everywhere you go.

Just be careful in high summer. Midges…

Edinburgh

“The Athens of the North” is but one of the soubriquets associated with Scotland’s capital. Stop anyone in a street around the UK and just mention the capital’s name and you’ll probably get a positive response along the lines of “Aw, beautiful city”. Is that a fair assessment and if so, is it sufficient reason to visit?

There are certainly some parts of Edinburgh that are attractive but much of the city is frankly pretty ugly. OK those are not necessarily the parts that tourists would visit but if you come into Edinburgh on the tram from the airport you are certainly going to see a lot of grot before you reach the nicer bits. But that can apply to many others including London so I’ll focus on the bits that people DO visit. Edinburgh is basically two different halves - Old Town and New Town. The “new” bit isn’t new at all as it is mostly Georgian but compared to the largely medieval Old Town, well, yes it’s newer. The most popular visitor parts are in Old Town so I’ll start there. I’ll come back to New Town soon and the airport…

You can see the castle from a long way off and it dominates the skyline - as it was intended to do when it was a defensive fortress. Sitting at one end of the “Royal Mile” it neatly bookends Holyrood (or the Palace of Holyroodhouse to give it its full name. (The Royal Mile isn’t an actual street - just a convenient name for the various ones that link the palace and the castle). I can’t comment on what either is like to visit but getting into the castle now is a more protracted affair than it used to be thanks to the erection of a massive steel structure in front of it which appears to be seating. Presumably for the annual Tattoo and other events that take place in front of the castle. It looks as if it will be permanent judging by the extent of the building work. Imagine one side of Old Trafford dumped in front of Windsor Castle. Just why?

The rest of the journey is what most visitors will do. It’s fine if you need a kilt or some whisky. Maybe a tacky toy or a meal from a scruffy chain restaurant. But it’s not so fine if you expect to see well-maintained buildings (they are all very sooty and scruffy with the street levels being defaced by garish corporate shop signs) or convenient easy to navigate streets. The paths and roods underfoot in Edinburgh are in a dreadful state - broken paving slabs, uneven kerbs, broken roads destroyed by heavy tour buses and all of it slippery when wet. But the overwhelming experience is one of dirt, litter - including broken glass- weeds and a lingering smell of fumes and stale food from the night before. As a visitor I was appalled and angry.

How can a capital city be so disinterested in keeping itself looking good? Why is so little done to make it better managed and kept so that it creates a positive impression? Walking up from Princes Street (where most visitors will arrive by train, bus or tram) is a very unpleasant experience and if you were not 100% fit then a challenging one as well. Yes, the city is built on hills, that’s fine, but how anyone in a wheel chair could ever navigate a route around Edinburgh defeats me. You can’t change the topography but you can change how you help people get around it.

The walk down from the castle is an obstacle course with some very narrow parts, and then as businesses spill out you, have to side step their stuff, often on to the road. It’s a fair old trek down to Holyrood where you will also find the new Scottish Parliament - no expense spared there. The Palace is well maintained and attractive. The Parliament - well, interesting.

But as you walk back down to New Town, over all the construction work on North Bridge, you can see how many of the older buildings are looking very tired. Which brings me to New Town. Superficially very attractive terraces of Georgian houses and squares with gardens but it too is plagued by the lack of maintenance underfoot. Uneven, broken footpaths covered in chewing gum, litter bins overflowing, commercial bin bags stacked outside stinking in the heat, cobbled roads patched badly with tarmac and weeds at the edges. Not exactly an image of care and prosperity you might expect in a capital city that hypes itself so much.

Princes Street, once the elegant shopping area, is now scruffy and cheap looking. All the decent shops have closed and been replaced by down market outlets like Primark. Don’t look for a “Scottish shop” - there are none, just the usual international brands. Buses dominate again. Non stop, double decker diesel engine boxes hammer up and down creating fumes, noise and dust. In the middle of all of this is the tram line. Which has to share the same road space as the buses and stops at the same traffic lights and you have to dance between the buses to get to it. It only runs to the airport. The catenary system does nothing to improve the look of the city.

Finally, the airport. It is a first impression that many people have either getting to it or leaving. If you do so by road, you will be appalled at the surface - seems a few stray Russian artillery shells have landed. The car parking is chaotic, inconvenient and very expensive. The pickup point is a 10 minute walk from the terminal (looking like a second hand relic from Albania) and is in the open so good luck to you if it is raining when you arrive. As an impression of a first world capital city, it is very much third world. As a harbinger of what is to come in the city - it’s pretty much on the money.

Edinburgh really, really needs to do better than this. It trades on an image and reputation it no longer deserves. As a window into the nation, it’s a disgrace as it is how people will see it, and by association, the rest of Scotland. It just says “we don’t care, we can’t be arsed, take it as it is and just leave your money”.

Summary and conclusion

What are we to make of this curate’s egg of a country? Remember that I am looking at it through the eyes of a visitor (which I was many times before I was a resident) and it is not a comprehensive guide or assessment - just the bits that most people will come for and see.

On the credit side of the equation, we have truly fabulous scenery, wildlife, flora & fauna all bathed in clear, fresh air. The natives don’t bite and are welcoming to a fault. But it starts to run out of puff after that. The debit side looks long. The road and rail systems are in dire need of overhaul to bring them even close to a European standard. The hospitality industry means well but lacks the vision and the means to improve, again to a standard that most EU, Asian or American visitors would find reasonable. But that low quality comes at a not so low price, so on the value for money front, Scotland scores poorly. I think Alex Bell needs to get out more.

But what really lets it down in a spectacular way is the capital city. It’s falling apart and is not being restored or repaired, despite the vast revenue that comes from visitors each year. I get that maintaining historic buildings requires deep pockets but Scotland, or at least its Government keeps reminding us that theirs is a wealthy country. If so, that wealth is not manifested in the quality of its crown jewel, the capital.

Regardless of that there is simply NO excuse for the level of cleanliness throughout Edinburgh. Other large cities with large numbers of visitors manage to do this with apparent ease and even enthusiasm. It is hard not to draw the conclusion that the City administration is either clueless, unwilling or greedy for tax revenues to be spent elsewhere. Probably all three. Given that the country and the city** have been in the grip of the SNP for so long it should come as no surprise. Their collective understanding of, and support for, businesses is rock bottom.

What to do though? The first thing is a very loud wake up call and a recognition that it is pretty crap really. The next is a long term commitment to the investment in facilities and the expertise to install and run them to a standard that competes with the EU - that entity the Scottish Government is so in love with, but unable to emulate.

Most of all it needs a generational mindset shift so that any improvements continue and can be build upon. But for a country that has been fed the myths of everything for free, world class but without any effort to attain it and that all it needs to do better is to be unshackled from the rest of the UK, I will wager that the cold shower that needs to be applied will not be welcome or forthcoming any time soon. Much easier to continue to peddle the fantasy than deal with that nasty thing called reality.

** The City is now under Labour control and the SNP has formed a coalition with the Green Party to give it a majority. Prior to that both were SNP controlled for many years.