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Charlotte Square (see Edinburgh) plays host to this annual showcase of literary talent, bringing together the best-selling and most critically acclaimed authors for readings, debates and signing sessions.

The greatest extravaganza of music, drama, dance and opera on the planet. The Festival lays on the world’s most prestigious performers, while the thousand-show Fringe brings the unknown and avantegarde. The massive spectacle of the castle’s Military Tattoo is a swelling moment of national pride and vitality – a highly charged affair.

Established in 1947, the festival now comprises four categories: world premieres, young British talent, film study and a major restrospective.

A rival to Glasgow’s, this is the capital’s own festival of cool music (late Jul/early Aug).

Successfully combining education with entertainment in venues right across the city. The programme includes exhibitions of the latest scientific advances and demonstrations of tomorow’s gadgets, as well as a platform for serious debate.

You have to go to Antarctica to find a larger gathering of outdoor penguins. Here, in an underwater gallery, you can watch 150 cavort in the pool. The other highlights are the walkways over a re-creation of the African plains, where you can look down upon zebras, oryxes and ostriches (with a stunning, if rather mismatched, view of Edinburgh in the background), as well as marmosets and other miniature monkeys of the Magic Forest. But it’s the penguins that steal the show.

A wonderful sense of history pervades this palace, the home of Mary Queen of Scots and the Stuart kings from 1541. Restored royal bedchambers and fine 17th-century tapestries are on display, but most intriguing of all is the oldest real tennis court still in use in Britain, built in 1539. Unlike the modern game, real tennis was played indoors and shares some similarities with squash.

Alexander Bain created the first machine capable of making facsimiles of original documents in 1843.

The rich language of the Gael can be seen on road signs and heard in shops in the Highlands and Islands. There are estimated to be 60,000 Gaelic-speakers in the country, their stronghold being the Western Isles, but even here it’s a second language. Despite the increase in Gaelic-medium education and the success of Gaelic pop stars Runrig, young people appear less dedicated to the language and its use is in decline.