At the heart of Scotland lies Perth. Perth is often voted in surveys as having the highest quality of life in Britain, when taking into account factors such as employment, amenities, neighbourliness, services and surrounding beauty. Perthshire certainly has a little bit of everything, all pleasant, and likes to bill itself as 'Scotland in one county.' In the days before Edinburgh was settled upon as capital, numerous towns such as Stirling or Dunfermline held the king and his court; but it was Perth which was the main site. And before Scotland came into existence, Perth was the site of the Pictish capital, too. At Scone palace in Perth, the Scots had their most precious talisman, the coronation stone, the Stone of Destiny.

Perthshire is part arable farmland, part sheepwalk, and part sporting estate. The famous Tay and other rivers are well known for their salmon, and the wooded banks are very attractive, especially in the stretches around Killiecrankie and Dunkeld. Perthshire has rivers with wooded glens, long lochs with watersports, and lots of high grassy hills. Range Rovers and Subarus and other good cars are seen on the windy tree-lined country roads, and about the whole county is a variety and softness not seen in the more rugged Highland scenery of the west and north. My grandmother told me that when she was a child, her schoolteacher instructed her that Perthshire was the most attractive part of Scotland. She disagreed, saying it was Argyll. I would have to agree with her, as while Perthshire has varied scenery and farmland with lots of wildlife, the scenery is not the best Scotland has to offer. But it would be churlish to dismiss it for this; in many other countries, a place like Perthshire would be a national treasure, and some of its curiosities, like in Glen Lyon are among the first rank.

In Dunkeld, Scottish folk musician Dougie Maclean lives, and runs a pub. Maclean is a foremost exponent of a form of music which has been gaining in popularity over the years. When the first modern folk bands began, such as the Corries, Scottish folk music was seen as extremely uncool and old fashioned, when youngsters could listen to rock & roll coming from America. But with bands in the 80's such as Runrig and Capercaille singing Gaelic and traditional folk songs for the first time with electric guitars and synthesisers, more and more people became switched on to these old styles. New folk songs are being written today and although the majority of youngsters who would consider themselves music fans prefer guitar bands like Oasis or Kasabian (note to readers - update as required!), an encouragingly healthy and increasing minority of youngsters like and play folk music.

Travelling upstream on the Tay from Dunkeld, past the beautifully wooded gorge of Killecrankie, one reaches Blair Castle set in parkland below heatherclad mountains. The Duke of Atholl, based in Blair Castle, has the only (legal) private army in the whole of Europe. This army is more ceremonial than a battle hardened corps of elite troops, but it is an impressive boast none the less. They make a fine sight marching around with full Highland regalia and the pipes playing. Above sits the sprawling, corrie sculpted mass of Beinn a' Ghlo, and Glen Tilt, an ancient right of way through the Mounth between the districts of Atholl and Mar. The spacious, high, heathery plateau on the watershed has a great air of space and is ideal for cross country skiing. This watershed is a historically important one. It separates the south of Scotland from the north, and its effectiveness as a barrier enabled the Highlands to remain outside central government influence for so long.

This atmospheric, flat, high plateau stretches as far as Lochnagar and beyond. Deep, steep sided glens bite into the plateau, Glen Clova, Glen Lee, the Gaick pass. Glen Clova is the weekend playground for the city of Dundee, very much Scotland's forgotten city. Perhaps this is why the city council calls it 'The City of Discovery.'

Dundee is the smallest of Scotland's four cities, with a population around 150,000. (Inverness and Stirling have also been granted city status since the millenium, but they are cities only in name.) It is a city with a chequered history, yet most of its historic buildings were pulled down in Victorian times. And in this century, most of the interesting Victorian buildings were themselves demolished for uninspiring tower blocks. As a result, there is little of interest to see in Dundee; a shame, as it has a fine situation built on the slopes of a hill called The Law, looking out to the firth of Tay and the infamous Tay Bridge.

Dundee's most famous native, unfortunately, is the notoriously bad poet McGonagall, and the city itself is one of departed industries and former glories, a sort of poor man's Glasgow, without Glasgow's pzazz, arts scene, or fine buildings. The city slogan itself comes from Captain Scott, of ill-fated Antartic fame, whose ship The Discovery was built in Dundee. However, Dundee could surprise us yet - with its specialist technology universities and small but influential biotech and video games sectors, Dundee offers the most modern jobs in Scotland, in the sunniest city in the country.

The area surrounding Dundee is of arable farmland. It is one of the driest areas in Scotland, a quality highly prized in a wet country, and the difference between the lush pastures of the west and here are obvious. Glamis castle is here, the ancestral home of the Queen Mother, and also said to be the most haunted castle in the whole of the haunted island of Britain. The rolling fields of this fertile region is packed with Pictish remains, most especially their beautifully carved standing stones, many of which are inscribed with an unusual script called Ogham. The Picts were the first historically recorded natives of what is now called Scotland - they were here before the Scots came over from Ulster in the Dark Ages - and most Scots have Pictish blood. Despite this, the Picts remain little known, and it is the Scots who the country is now named after.

And one of the Scots' most talismanic sites, Arborath Abbey, sits amongst red sandstone seacliffs on this Pictish coast. After his defeat at Bannockburn in 1314, the English king Edward II still held out hope of conquering Scotland, and refused to give up his claim to Scotland. Thus the Scots nobles convened at Arbroath in 1320, to sign a letter to the Pope, informing him and all Europe of Scotland's independence. It is a remarkable document for its time, expressing sentiments not seen until the French Revolution and American declaration of independence 450 years later:

Yet if he [the Scots' king] should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

And nearby is Dunnichen, site of an ancient Pictish victory over the Northumbrians in the years after the Romans left. Without this victory, there may have been no seperate state in the north of Britian, Pictland would have been ruled by the Anglian kingdoms, and Scotland would never have existed in the first place. Something to think about as we head up the clean-cut low cliffs of the coastline past Dunottar castle - one of the most impregnable in Scotland and location for Mel Gibson's 'Hamlet,' to Aberdeen, my favourite city in Scotland.