His poem The Selkirk Grace also earned an honored spot on the lids. One of the owners of the hotel, the Selkirk Arms in Kirkcudbright, says he did it in tribute to Rabbie—the poet stayed in the hotel—and to “make customers smile.” Another point, but not one mentioned by the owners: It’s fine bathroom reading material. 

Related on World Hum:
* The Case of the Disappearing $1 Million Hotel Bathtub
* The Sen. Larry Craig Bathroom at the Minneapolis Airport: ‘It’s Become a Tourist Attraction’

But I love it. I was in Scotland last week, eating the herbivore version of Scotland’s national dish as much as possible. It’s not that I’m afraid of the real haggis -- an agitative mix of sheep liver, heart, lungs and other internal organs blended with meat, oats, barley and spices and cooked inside a sheep stomach. It’s just that “fake haggis” tastes better and seemed far easier to find. It may be a sign of the health-food times in Scotland, great purveyor of heart-attack cuisine. But a furious Robert Burns is surely scoffing in his grave.

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The Scottish capital made a move toward the top of travelers’ minds this week—the famed Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival begin soon—along with China, the Sierra Nevada and some purveyors of hotel porn. Here’s the Zeitgeist. 

Most Viewed Travel Story
Telegraph UK (current)
Edinburgh Travel Guide

Most E-Mailed Travel Story
New York Times (current)
Not the Hamptons. Yet.
* 36 Hours in Edinburgh also makes the most e-mailed list, currently at No. 3.

Most Viewed Travel Story
Los Angeles Times (current)
Got a Free Weekend? Escape to the Sierra Nevada

Most Read Feature
World Hum (posted this week)
Ask Rolf: I’m in my Mid-40s. Am I Too Old to Stay in Hostels?
* It’s all about spirit, says Rolf.

Most Read Travel Story
USA Today (current)
Marriott Blasted for Hotel Porn
* Morality in Media is making a stir, and Kitty Bean Yancey’s Hotel Hotsheet blog has a raucous discussion going on. 

Most Read Weblog Post
World Hum (posted this week)
‘Into the Wild’: Sean Penn Adapts Jon Krakauer’s Book for the Big Screen

Most Popular Travel Story
Netscape (this week)
Beautiful Chinese Travel and Vacation

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When I first heard about a new law related to kilts, I naturally assumed it had something to do with the hordes of kilt-wearing, buttocks-baring Scots now invading Poland. But it turns out the new law has nothing to do with protecting the poor, terrorized Polish men and women who have suffered the indignity of witnessing one too many bare Scottish buttocks. In fact, the law has everything to do with protecting the poor, terrorized, protected species—otters and badgers, to name just two—whose fur has traditionally been used to make sporrans, the little purses often worn with kilts. Kilt wearers, it seems, may now have to get a license for their sporrans. Well that’s great for the otters and badgers. But what about the good people of Poland? Who’s protecting them?

Related on World Hum:
* Invasion of the Kilt-Wearing, Buttocks-Baring Scots!
* Ask Rolf: Should I Pack My Kilt on My Trip to Asia?

Photo by hans s via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Slate’s latest Well-Traveled chronicles Inigo Thomas’s journey to Pluscarden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in northern Scotland. Thomas doesn’t quite declare monastery travel a trend, but he writes that more people do it than one might think. “If monasticism isn’t thriving as it did in medieval Europe, neither is it dying,” he writes. “Going on retreats to monasteries, whether they are Christian or Buddhist or semimonastic institutions, seems more popular than ever.”

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Our hearts go out to the nation of Poland. Groups of kilt-wearing, underwear-challenged Scottish men drawn to cheap beer are apparently invading the country, getting loaded and, adding insult to injury, yes, lifting their kilts. “It’s easy to spot these so-called ‘tourists’ from a mile off,” sniffed one local paper. Now, authorities are considering changes to the law. According to Scotsman.com: “In the city of Wroclaw, in the south-west of Poland, officials are exploring a kilt ban after being horrified by groups of drunk Scottish men who lifted their kilts to strangers to reveal their buttocks. Local police admit they have been unable to control the groups of maurauding Scots, despite complaints from outraged locals and fed-up bar owners, who claim Scots are rowdy, break glasses and leave pub toilets in a shocking state.”

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Coordinates: 56 57 N 5 40 W
Depth: 1,017 feet (310 m)
Sure, Loch Ness and the rumors of its mythical resident monster tend to grab all of the attention, but Scotland actually contains dozens of the glacially formed bodies of water. Loch Morar, not far from the Isle of Skye in the Northern Highlands, serves as a particularly good example, given that it’s the deepest freshwater body in Great Britain and Ireland. Not to mention that Morar’s 12-mile length has also produced numerous eyewitness accounts of another strange serpentine creature, known locally as Morag. Visitors should know that the lake can be kayaked or canoed, but take note: The lightly populated, steep-sided shoreline doesn’t offer an easy escape route should Morag suddenly appear and prove to be more fact than fable.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.

Coordinates: 55 59 N 3 23 W
Population: 9,370 (2001 est.)
Mad dogs and Englishmen may be unable to resist the midday sun, but it’s the Scottish who will venture into the heat covered head to toe in 10,000 prickly seed pods from the burdock plant. For centuries now, August in Scotland has marked the reappearance of a strange creature known as the Burryman, a somewhat masochistic, yet tradition-bound resident of South Queensferry, who spends a day wandering the streets (assisted by two attendants) petitioning neighbors for whiskey and money. In the words of John Nicol, this year’s lucky honoree: “It is agony to wear the suit as it is as uncomfortable as it looks.” Once a flourishing port just northwest of Edinburgh, the small town of South Queensferry is also the site of the Forth Rail Bridge, an 8,296-foot engineering marvel spanning the Firth of Forth that was the largest such structure on the planet upon its completion in March of 1890.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.