Scotland, July 2011.

The campus of the University of Stirling. 

 I don't actually have any pictures of the town of Stirling itself, although I saw it briefly - it has a castle and a shopping mall and lots of charity shops.

The loch of Stirling University campus.

Edinburgh

Docks

 A walk down Leith Walk brought me to some docks that looked quite disused, inhabited only by ducks and swans. A very grey, quiet evening that smelled of salt and rain.

Views of Edinburgh city centre

Recommended places to visit

Food

Ferri's, opposite the Omni-multiplex, down from John Lewis towards the sea. Excellent pasta and a very friendly and singing proprietor.
Black Medicine on Bruntsfield Place. Past the castle, beyond the centre, close to parks with great views. Excellent smoothie and brie-cranberry-bacon bagel.

Bookshops

The main shopping street is Princes Street, which is very easy to find. However, I found some bookshops further away, past Cowgate.

Edinburgh Books (145-147 West Port, Edinburgh EH8 9NJ) is a second-hand bookshop, small but compact. Fiction shelving reaching up to the ceiling, well organised alphabetically, and with a large stuffed cow's head mounted on one wall. A large selection of contemporary and classic fiction, and books about Scotland and set in Scotland, as well as some poetry (mainly older stuff), biography and criticism. There were probably books in other fields as well, but I didn't check that very thoroughly.


Not to be confused with Edinburgh Bookshop, an independent seller of new books. Very appealing interior, clean and bright with a nice selection of contemporary fiction and non-fiction, and particularly children's fiction, but not much you couldn't find in other bookshops. Obviously I recommend buying from there rather than WH Smith's, but it's a pleasant bookshop to drop by and browse in on your way to somewhere else, or to go to when you know what you want and that they have it, rather than somewhere to spend hours.


Unlike Blackwell's, Edinburgh (South Bridge, which is what North Bridge turns into, not a bridge that runs parallel to North Bridge).On at least three floors, it has a great selection of classic literature, crime, fantasy, travel books and children's books, as well as academic and non-fiction texts. It's not as extensive as the ones in Oxford, but it's large and you're more likely to spend time trying to choose between things you want than trying to find something you want. The pleasure of the Oxford Blackwell is marred slightly by the noisy Caffe Nero on the second floor (can't someone invent silent coffee-making-machines?), but in Edinburgh the cafe is situated so that its bustle and screeching hardly penetrates the actual bookshop.


Next to Blackwell's is Southside books, a secondhand bookshop worth checking out because it's the sort of place where you might suddenly find something you've wanted for years or nothing at all. It's very cramped, but it gives off an air of potential, and has a lot of Scottish-interest books.