Dear Friends and Readers, ⌛ Another year is gone…May the New Year 2022 bless you with health, peace, wealth and happiness! Pretty much in all the largest cities of the world as in Scotland – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Stirling and Inverness – all-night celebrations are traditionally held to welcome the New Year. The Edinburgh Hogmanay celebrations are among the largest … Continue reading →
Since it is not everyday that great events are spread amongst the news broadcasting networks, I’m happy to share a great moment in time here on Scotiana’s blog, in case you missed it when it came out. Edinburgh Airport is now the first Scottish airport to handle more than 10 million passengers over a 12 month period! Wow…10 million passengers, … Continue reading →
It’s now 2013 and Scotiana’s team is happy to celebrate, with you all, this great moment 🙂 ! Happy New Year ! Health, Peace and Joy to everyone and may all your wishes come true ! ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ A New Year toast said by Scottish people ? “A guid New Year to ane an’ a’ and mony may ye see.” … Continue reading →
To discover literary Edinburgh, you have to walk it, defying Robert Louis Stevenson’s “bleak winds” and exploring Dorothy Wordsworth’s “passes of dark stone”, simply because there is no other way of penetrating the ancient wynds, closes and creeper-ridden burial grounds of this city, whose literary past is written on its dark and hoary face. (Allan Foster – The … Continue reading →
(Edinburgh Forth Bridges © 2006 Scotiana) The Scottish capital is a place of outstanding beauty. It’s a city we’ve fallen in love with when we first discovered it a few years ago and we can’t wait to go back there! There is truly something “very special” about Edinburgh… As soon as you approach the city, you can feel the … Continue reading →
Hi everybody, We don’t live in Edinburgh and, as the number of our visits there happen to be rather limited, our vision of this fascinating city owes much to our readings, each of them adding its little touch to the sense of place we got there and making us still more eager to go back to the beautiful Scottish … Continue reading →
‘Books!’ said Tuppence. She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered explosion. ‘What did you say?’ said Tommy. Tuppence looked across the room at him. ‘I said “books”,’ she said. ‘I see what you mean,’ said Thomas Beresford. In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of them various books had been extracted. … Continue reading →
What a good idea, Janice, to have chosen this quotation from Sue Walker. It perfectly illustrates the idea of a “sense of place” which has always played so important a part in Scottish literature. Sue Walker is a popular Scottish crime fiction writer. As she was born and has lived for some time in Edinburgh she is particularly well placed … Continue reading →
(…) “I was asked by an acquaintance recently how the inspiration for my novels came about. A common enough question and I had a straightforward reply. ‘Location, location, location.’ And that answer, to a great extent, is the whole truth. It is certainly the case that the locations used in The Reckoning (the island of Fidra and the East Lothian … Continue reading →
Take a good detective novel with you in the car, read it or listen to it and you’ll soon forget bad weather, heavy traffic and long hours of driving on dull motorways. As Janice mentioned it to you, in her last post, that’s exactly what we did on our long journey from Bordeaux to Scotland. Motorways being not the best … Continue reading →
It is with great pleasure Mairiuna that I will undertake with you this challenge of reading the complete series of 17 novels from Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series. While I await reception of my Amazon order for the first novel in the detective series, Knots and Crosses let me jot down some facts about the first Ian Rankin’s book we … Continue reading →
The Rebus Tours ! Can’t wait to play the game Janice, but you know, it’s already listed on Itinerary 7, together with the Ghosts Tours and a number of other ones for that matter! Remember how we used to stop in front of every poster advertising the Tours in Edinburgh and how desperately we tried to understand what the lively … Continue reading →
Touring the beautiful city of Edinburgh has never been so easy since the implementation of various thematic guided tours catering to the visitors flowing in all year round. Be it ghost walks, history, architecture, cycling or literary tours or even a tour of the most famous taverns and pubs, there is something for everyone. Amongst all those tours, there is one … Continue reading →
(Continued from: Scotiana’s Top 10 in Edinburgh – Part 1 ) 6 – Grassmarket We discovered Grassmarket on a Fair Day during the Fringe Festival. A very coloured and cheerful atmosphere indeed ! Most picturesque too with its cobbled streets and crow-stepped gable houses, its old fountain and the castle looming over the place. We lingered a couple of hours along the … Continue reading →
We’re almost there Mairiuna, only a few feet away from Picardy Place where the more than life-size bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes is standing close to the house (No 11) where his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle was born. Sculpted and cast by Gerald Ogilvie Laing at Kinkell Castle in Sutherland in 1989, it is today one of Edinburgh landmarks. The … Continue reading →
