The Banks and Braes of Literary Scotland

21 August - 5 September 2013

Tour Highlights

• • Lectures and site visits by Susannah Fullerton, President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia
• • Explore the beautiful landscapes that inspired generations of poets, from the Scottish Borders to the Highlands, including the glorious Isle of Skye, Glen Coe, Loch Lomond & Loch Ness
• • Visit the birthplaces and childhood homes of some of Scotland's greatest writers – Robert Burns, J.M. Barrie, Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Carlyle
• • Visit the National Library in Edinburgh and the Mitchell Library in Glasgow, home to many precious original manuscripts of Scotland's authors
• • Explore the great industrial city of Glasgow, once neglected as a seat of industry and now a revitalised cosmopolitan city with a bustling art and café scene.
• • Spend 4 days in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital that is steeped in history. Walk along the Royal Mile, from the mighty castle to Holyrood Palace, the official residence of the British monarch in Edinburgh. Explore the Grassmarket, Lawnmarket and New Town.
• • Visit the Craiglockhart War Hospital (now part of Napier University), used during the Great War to treat shell-shocked soldiers, where the poets Wilfred Owen and Siegried Sassoon met.
• • Take refreshments at inns and restaurants frequented by great writers.
• • Enjoy a traditional Scottish dinner at Dalhousie Castle, with a piper addressing the haggis with Robert Burn's Ode to the Haggis and Highland dancers

About the Tour

When Robert Louis Stevenson was ill in Samoa, his thoughts turned to the land of his birth:

"Be it granted to me to behold you again in dying, Hills of home"

he wrote in Songs of Travel. He did not live to fulfil that wish, but died in Samoa and was buried on a mountain overlooking the Pacific. His body had gone travelling, but Stevenson's heart had remained in the bonny hills of Scotland. As with so many great Scottish writers, his love for his country shines through his works.

A great work of literature has its own life and can be appreciated without knowledge of the places and buildings mentioned in it, and yet an understanding of the environment and experiences of the author can hugely enrich our appreciation of literature. Visiting places connected with famous novels, poems or plays brings the excitement of recognising places we have long known in our imaginations and the thrill of new perceptions into literary works. To connect with the lives of Scottish writers, to see firsthand the landscapes they described, to walk through their homes and to see the original manuscripts of their novels and poems – these are awe-inspiring and wonderful experiences!

This tour offers you that opportunity. We will follow in the footsteps of Robert Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Carlyle, James Boswell, John Buchan and J.M. Barrie. You will encounter authors of whom you perhaps know little – poet Hugh MacDiarmid, novelist Lewis Grassic Gibbon, naturalist Gavin Maxwell who wrote of otters, and Muriel Spark who wrote of schoolgirls. Modern writers are still being inspired by the Scottish cities and countryside – Ian Rankin and Quintin Jardine portray their fictional detectives delving into Edinburgh drug crime and prostitution. J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter in Edinburgh cafes and Alexander McCall Smith has made Scotland Street in Edinburgh famous around the world. Their works are a part of our tour as well. Sometimes we will follow in the footsteps of English writers who have travelled north – Dr Johnson may have remarked that "the noblest prospect a Scotsman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England", but he loved touring the Highlands with his friend James Boswell, and we will travel part of the route they both described so memorably in their travel books.

This will be a cultural journey as well as a literary one, with visits to historic castles, to places of battle and massacre that have inspired ballads and songs, to sites connected with music such as Loch Lomond and the crossing to the Isle of Skye. We will call in at Gretna Green, setting for so many literary marriages of eloping couples, we will look out for the legendary monster at Loch Ness, and will hear performances of Burns's poems and songs. You will enjoy the contrasts of being in an elegant Georgian city one day and amidst wild scenery the next; you will visit grand homes and castles but also humble cottages; you will climb up a lighthouse and search for otters. Libraries, those rich repositories of literature, are included, and there will be time to visit great galleries. In shops filled with literary memorabilia you can purchase or browse. Tartans and shortbread, banks and braes, whisky and wynds, bagpipes and haggis – all will add local colour and Scottishness to our journey.

In all these places we will investigate the role played by a sense of place in literary creation. Just how much did environment shape each writer? How did a weaver's cottage in Kirriemuir influence the creation of Peter Pan, what was it about Georgian Edinburgh that inspired the creation of Miss Jean Brodie, why did the job of ploughing result in one of Burns' greatest poems? Where does local dialect shape works of Scottish literature – Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid and Lewis Grassic Gibbon chose to write in the vernacular and this is what makes their works so unique, but how does their writing transcend the regional to become universal? In what ways has Scotland's turbulent history formed novels such as Kidnapped or Sunset Song and poems such as Scots Wha Hae and A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle? How did Scottish writers begin the country's tourist industry? This will be a journey through extremely beautiful scenery and varied landscapes, but it will also be a journey through the very different minds and imaginations of some marvellous writers.

It is not possible to include all the literary sites of Scotland in this tour – the country's written heritage is too vast. Some wonderful places have had to be left out. The tour aims to be informative, varied and fun. It will inspire you to read new works and re-discover old favourites, it will delight you with marvellous scenery and instruct you about the lives of famous writers. You will travel in the company of Australians and New Zealanders who share your fascination with good books. Treat yourself and discover the literary and historical treasures of glorious Scotland.

16 DAYS Moffat (3 nights) • Glasgow (2 nights) • Portree, Isle of Sky (2 nights) • Pitlochry (2 nights) • Edinburgh (4 nights) • Peebles (2 nights)

Sites visited: David Livingstone Museum • Ellisland Farm • Dumfries (Globe Inn, Robert Burns Centre) • Selkirk Arms, Kirkcudbright • St Mary's Loch & Grey Mare's Tail Nature Reserve • Tibbie Shiels Inn • Thomas Carlyle's Birthplace, Ecclefechan • Gretna Green • Robert Burns Birthplace & Museum, Ayr • Auchinleck Church • Tarbolton Bachelors Club • Glasgow (Walking Tour, Burrell Collection, Mitchell Library) • Glen Coe • Glenfinnan • Isle of Skye (Talisker Distillery, Dunvegan Castle, the Trotternish Peninsula) • Ring of Bright Water Centre, Kyle of Lochalsh • Eilean Donan Castle • Loch Ness • Lewis Grassic Gibbon Centre, Arbuthnott • J.M.Barrie Musuem, Kirriemuir • Hawes Inn, South Queensferry • Edinburgh (Castle, Lady Stair's House Writer's Museum, Canongate Church, Holyrood House, Dinner at The Stevenson House, New Town, National Library of Scotland, White Hart Inn, Craiglockhart Hydropathic War Hospital, Traditional Scottish Dinner at Dalhousie Castle) • John Buchan Centre, Biggar • Selkirk village & courthouse • Abbotsford House • Scott's View • Dryburgh Abbey