THE owners of a five-star hotel that closed suddenly have called in another hotel chain to help out brides let down just weeks before their weddings.

TUCKED behind the town of Grangemouth is a little piece of luxury you might miss when passing through this industrial heartland.

WHERE once there was virgin, sprawling coastline, Turkey now hosts grand, all-inclusive resorts and immaculate courses that suit the golf tourist to a tee

]]> 1.2126562 Tue, 21 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/outdoors_back_corries_aonach_mor_1_2126481

IMAGINE a ski resort where real-deal backcountry terrain is just a five-minute stroll from the top of the highest lift. A place where a long, curvaceous ridge offers access to a series of steep-sided bowls which, because they’re sheltered from the prevailing wind, are often stuffed full of deliciously soft powder snow.

Make a quick - and cheap - getaway to Canada, the Netherlands or Spain

REBECCA Monks spends a weekend whisking round the Croatian city of Dubrovnik

THE plane was banking right, the city tipping into view in my window, when Belfast’s famous twin yellow cranes became visible. “What are they called again?” I was asked. I couldn’t remember. A chair creaked, and the passenger in front peeked over the headrest. “Samson and Goliath,” he offered in a broad Belfast accent. “I can tell ye how to get to them if ye want.”

]]> 1.2126483 Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:40:29 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/travel_tantallon_castle_1_2126431

The top of a promontory, with a view over the Firth of Forth, is a pretty impressive location for any house to perch upon. That’s clearly what William Angus, First Earl of Angus, thought, when he started work on Tantallon Castle in the 1350s.

We were about an hour out of Nashville when a new sound made itself heard on the Tennessee Music Highway - the dull repetitive thud of a blown-out tyre.

Brilliant sunshine, azure seas and golden sands are uplifting enough. Add wonderful food, pampering galore and lashings of local rum and you must be in Mauritius

GAP YEAR students and baby boomers treating themselves to a midlife crisis no longer want to rough it, sleeping on the beach or stowing their fading backpacks at a hard-bedded hostel.

Families face paying up to £320 just to take baggage with them on their summer holidays this year.

With magnificent temples and wildlife, a trip to Sri Lanka is the experience of a lifetime

WE ALL know the story of the town mouse and the country mouse. There’s a moral in there somewhere, I’m sure of it, though what I’ve decided to take from it is that even the most devoted town mouse or comfortable country mouse can learn something from the occasional change of scenery.

HOTEL prices in Edinburgh are already soaring for the night of the Murrayfield concert even before tickets for Madonna’s show go on sale.

A JOURNEY on the Trans Mongolian Express takes the traveller through magical landscapes into a world steeped in the past

]]> 1.2099093 Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.scotsman.com/travel_airsaig_house_arisaig_1_2099095

ONCE upon a time, Sarah Winnington-Ingram had her wedding night at Arisaig House, a romantic, grey stone mansion on the Road to the Isles – a place so swish it even has its own railway station.

IF YOU want to get to know your ale like a real German, avoid the tourist traps (and taps) in Bavaria.

SPLASH out on a romantic weekend in the Highlands that delivers on adventure, luxury and good service

FORTHY-EIGHT hours in Manchester is still plenty of time to enjoy Manchester’s cosmopolitan delights, finds Pamela Moffat