Culzean Castle is one of Ayrshire's finest attractions.

The castle stands in nearly 600 acres of woodland and coastal walks. Culzean Country Park boasts no less than five kilometres of magnificent coastline. From the sand dunes at the south end of the park to the rugged rocky shoreline, pitted with rock pools, caves and rock arches, the shore and beaches of sand and shingle stretch all the way to Croy Shore, the northern boundary of the park.

Click here for more details.

Golf enthusiasts will no doubt be acquainted with the famous Turnberry and Royal Troon courses, both just 20 minutes from Ayr, however No. 26 is central to many excellent courses - Belleisle, Seafield and Dalmilling to name but a few - truly a golfer's paradise!

Click here for more details.

"But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever; Or like the Borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the Rainbow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm."

Long considered the national poet of Scotland, Robert Burns is the author of Auld Lang Syne, To A Mouse and Tam o' Shanter. Raised in a poor family of farmers, Burns was nonetheless educated in literature and began writing verse when he was a teenager. His father died in 1784 and Burns tried to make a go of it as a farmer, but found more success with poetry. To raise money to emigrate to Jamaica, he published a collection called Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect in Kilmarnock in 1786. The collection sold well and boosted his reputation among the literati, so Burns decided to stay in Scotland. He toured the country, published another edition in Edinburgh (1787) and joined James Johnson in publishing The Scots Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish folk songs. Burns is credited with collecting, revising and adapting hundreds of traditional songs, and his original poems brought international attention to Scottish language and culture. Although Burns became a well-known poet and a favourite native son, he still had to work for a living. He settled in Dumfries, where he worked as an excise agent while continuing to write. Despite his early death at the age of 37 (he had an unhealthy heart, it seems), Burns produced a large body of work, including the popular Scot anthem Scots Wha Hae and the poem A Red, Red Rose. His life of carousing and his stick-it-to-the-man attitude further endeared him to his countrymen, and "Rabbie" Burns is still considered Scotland's best-loved poet.