The Scottish countryside is beautiful with unique flora and fauna, majestic farms, breathtaking seaside cliffs, and castle ruins steeped in history. Scotland also has flourishing urban towns with intriguing museums, historical castles, regal cathedrals, and exciting pubs. If you’re not an outdoorsy person who likes spending all your time in the countryside chasing Scottish highland cows, you’re in for a treat. Scotland has some great urban cities that are perfect for your Scotland vacation.

Museums

Scotland has so much history it’s bound to be full of museums. You can find all types of museums in Scotland’s cities. You can find ancient castles that have been turned into museums in most of the larger cities and even some of the smaller ones. You will also find all types and sizes of historic buildings that are housing Scotland’s antiquities. Scotland also has modern museums with fantastic examples of Scotland’s best modern art. Look for the National Gallery of Scotland which includes the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.

Restaurants

You might have heard that Scotland, like England, is not known for its legendary cuisine. Bland food might have been the only offerings in the past, but today that simply isn’t true. You can feast on anything from fast food to gourmet food and all sorts of ethnic foods in between. Like everywhere else in the world, you will have the best selection in the largest metropolitan areas. Of course seafood and fish are prominent on most menus if you are by the coast. It is no longer necessary to eat haggis in Scotland, in fact in many places you might have trouble even finding haggis. On the other hand you’ve got to try a Deep Fried Snickers Bar.

Pub Crawls

You can visit all sorts of museums, gardens, and restaurants during the day, but what is there to do at night? So many urbanites like to enjoy the benefits of city life during the evenings too. The perfect activity to fill your evenings is right downtown.  If you arranged your lodgings right they might even be right down stairs. On Pub Crawls you basically walk or “crawl” from pub to pub. If you look around you can find official Pub Crawls to take that are like a tour.

Above photo of Port O’ Leith bar, Eninburgh by Ross Angus

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