Scotland the Best! [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION This is the Millennium edition of Scotland the Best! it doesn't say so on the cover and by the time you read this you may well be weary or have forgotten about the whole damned thing anyway. Most likely, the year 2000 will be a year like any other with its good times and its bad times. But I do think this edition is millennial in one respect. I always see my book as a barometer, a gauge of how we are doing, so this is a report or perhaps a snapshot of all the best things about Scotland at the turn of the century. Though many things have not changed since I prepared the last edition in 1997 and lochs and hills and cas- tles have changed little over centuries, we check out everything again nevertheless. The emerging restaurant culture, not only in Edinburgh and Glasgow but even in places like Perth and Skye, and the fluctuating patterns of hotels and pubs are hard to keep up with but even outdoor places are subject to changes in, for example, their accessibility or what's available for visitors. If regular users of this guide find that many entries are unaltered, they can assume it's because the information and the received perception remains the same. Taken in the context of the whole, what we have tried to do as always, is to produce an accurate and coherent report on the state of the nation at the time of going to press. Unlike many other guides, Scotland the Best! is published very quickly after the final compilation of material. This edition was researched in the summer and autumn of 1999. New readers should be aware that Scotland the Best! is not an everything-goes-in kind of guidebook. It is highly selective and subjective and we do not list places just because they're there - only if they are above the ordinary and beyond the mediocre. We don't provide any orientation information and we assume you can follow a map. In short, we assume you are an intelligent and curious human being who perhaps doesn't have a lot of time to spend in Scotland or to sift through guides and the the piles of promotional print that's available.This book is supposed to be the only one you need, a discerning distillation of all the other pub and hotel guides, restaurant guides, walking books and local attraction brochures. Remember, we've eliminated all the not very good stuff no matter how it presents itself or how indignant they may be that we've ignored them. We include major attractions only if they're worth visit- ing in the same way that we include a little home-made ice-cream shop. In the year 2000, anywhere that's decent in Scotland should be in this book. We hope we've saved you time and helped you to have a more engaging experience. We know Scotland and we're proud of it; we want you to see the good bits - with time to stop and smell the roses en route. In the collection and evaluation of the huge amounts of info (and disinfo) and in the writing and editing of this edition, I am grateful for the efforts and commitment of my one true researcher, the endlessly intrepid and cheerful Keith Davidson. Intrepid because no glen is too long to bring back the latest word on the last bothy, cheerful because sixteen attractions in a day is not necessarily an attractive proposition. And thanks again go to my long-suffering PA Georgia. Though I say one and only researcher, this is not to diminish the vast amount of feed- back I now get from readers, not by mail but by e-mail via the internet site provided by The Famous Grouse (www.famousgrouse.com/scotlandthebest).Though I cannot reply to them, every one is noted and anywhere recommended or rubbished, is checked. Of course, I am sorry if I recommend somewhere highly and you then have a bad experience. Though I can't enter into correspondence with the place or the writer, we will be very wary of it in future. As is obvious with Scotland the Best!, nobody here pays for inclusion and cannot affect what we write about them. We purposeful- ly carry no ads or sponsorship and there is no editor breathing down my neck to con- form or capitulate. This book survives on its sales alone and because we, and you, believe in it. I hope you will keep using it and keep writing in. I'd like to think that everyone recognised and listed between these covers, every chef, baker and candle- stick maker has the same aspiration as I do:to think always of their readers/customers first. And to help make Scotland the best!