my Scotland

One of Scotland's most beloved storytellers shares the hidden gems and timeless spots he treasures

- By ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

Craiglockhart Hill

From this hilltop, Edinburgh is spread out before you. As often as not it is a windswept landscape, with clouds racing across a cold sky. The Firth of Forth is a blue-grey finger poking into Scotland; beyond it the hills and the north. It was here, all those years ago, that men from the old military hospital just down the hill came to recover their sanity after the madness of the trenches. Their ghosts are still here.

Tobermory

There is nowhere else quite like Tobermory, with its brightly coloured buildings, its busy harbour and its fish and chip van parked under the town clock. We come in here on our boat, tie up, then visit the shops. There is an old-fashioned hardware store selling everything from buckets and brooms to pots and paints. There is a bookshop that also sells fishing tackle. There is a lifeboat moored to the town pier, ready to launch at a few minutes’ notice.

The Italian Chapel, Orkney