Rolling hills, sheep farms and few visitors

The Southern Uplands are probably Scotland's most overlooked region. This is a place of rolling hills, sheep pastures, forested valleys, lazy rivers and with a Lowland culture of its own.

Over the centuries this border country between Scotland and England was repeatedly raided and destroyed by the English and was long a lawless zone in which Border Reivers (raiders) thrived on cattle rustling.

But it was also a centre of commerce and religion, and developed it's own hybrid Anglo-Scottish culture, which under the Stuarts came to dominate much of the rest of Scotland.

Many sights in the Southern Uplands reflect its contributions to Scottish history: the Burns Museum devoted to poet Robert Burns; Abbottsford House, the former home of novelist Sir Walter Scott and various abbeys – such as Melrose Abbey – which now lie ruined but remain hugely impressive for their fine medieval and renaissance architecture.