scotland is a perennial favourite when it comes to travel. from its rugged and dramatic highlands to its vibrant cities and festivals. considering its relatively small size, scotland really does punch above its weight when it comes to tourism. and this week we're looking back at some of our favourite travel show adventures there, kicking off with the time i headed to shetland to experience something that's firmly based in the islands' viking past, although a big change is under way. sitting halfway between the scottish mainland and norway, the shetland islands have a unique combination of cultures. and today the sleepy town of lerwick is facing an invasion from a long dormant foe. men shout the vikings. cheering and shouting so this is up helly aa. it's one of a number of viking festivals that take place in shetland every year. this one in lerwick is the biggest. up helly aa is best known for its night—time procession. almost 1,000 people carry flaming torches through the streets, then set fire to a replica viking ship. the day begins with a march through the town led by the jarl squad, a group of around 60 locals kitted out in elaborate viking garb. i mean, this is serious stuff. this is... yeah, yeah. so who makes these? almost all of it was done in shetland. there was a design committee in the squad. what kind of money are we talking for an individual kit? between £2,000 and £3,000. wow. so you need to be really serious about this. this is something you really commit to. yeah. the viking heritage of shetland is something that most - shetlanders are - incredibly proud of. a lot of the place names in shetland are of- scandinavian origin. and you'll hear my accent. it's this kind of strange - amalgam of scots and old norn. those are the roots of our language. i within the crowd, there are tourists from across the world. but fundamentally, this is a local tradition. there are rules for who can take part, which is why 2023 is a big yearfor up helly aa, because it's the first time in the history of this beardy, testosterone—fuelled festival that women canjoin in. i think it's probably fairl to say that the reaction to the announcement was broadly positive, although probably- some people still cherish the format of the festival as it was. traditionally, women are the hostesses of the all—night parties that follow the procession. claire has some sympathy for those who want to keep it all as it was. my husband has been . in nine jarl squads now. he's ajoiner, - he's a craftsman. i think it's a shame to forget what pride and delight- lots of people involved in making these suits. and making this event - happen, from the hostesses in the halls, you know, i they do those things very, very well and they love it as it is. - but i also am a woman- and i have a daughter who's three, and i would love to see her participate l on her own terms. women and girls have been taking part in other viking festivals around shetland for a few years, but the changes to up helly aa won't transform it overnight. jarl squad members are nominated 15 years in advance, so they'll mostly remain male for a while yet. but the changes will have an immediate impact on thejunior up helly aa, which takes place right before the adult one. i'm on my way to meet one young torchbearer. hello. hi, there. i'm christa. come in. you must be joni. yeah. so can you walk along the route withjoni as well? yes. oh, that's great. joni is one of around 30 girls who'll be taking part for the first time. what are you looking forward to most? probably throwing the torch into the galley. the torch might get a bit heavy to carry. so we've made these tins where we put it in so it, like, lifts some of the weight off of you. brilliant! as the day draws to an end in lerwick, the festivities start to heat up. i'm standing here with a lot of proud parents as the members of the junior procession light up their torches and get ready to set off across town. hopefully, we can catch sight ofjoni. behind the jarl squad, the other revellers are dressed, not in viking gear, but in fancy dress. and sure enough, we see lots of girls taking part... ..including joni. not long after thejunior procession, it's the grown—ups' turn. # and wake the mighty memories. # of heroes that are dumb # the waves are rolling on. the atmosphere is brilliant. you've got the singing, lots of shouting. they've turned off the street lights so you've just got this torchlight around. but you do have to be a bit cautious because if a gust of wind comes by, the embers fly from the torches and land on your clothes. you've got to be vigilant or you'll go home with a few holes. as the adult procession passes by, we don't see many women taking part, but any controversy hasn't stopped crowds of people turning out to watch. did you have any feelings yourself about girls being able to participate? yeah, well, our boys are involved. if we would have had two girls, i suppose we'd have been keen that they could be involved as well. after a circuit, the procession files into a local play park. three cheers for up helly aa. hip, hip! crowd: hooray! hip, hip! hooray! we've got the torches going in, i can see viking helmets, the galley going up in flame. the embers above just being blown around by this mad wind. this is an incredible experience. and who knows? maybe they'll make a viking of me yet. and up helly aa takes place on the last tuesday of every january. and if you're thinking of going, just hope and pray that the rain stays vertical and not horizontal. well, staying with the islands, we're travelling south now and heading to orkney, a place i've loved exploring over the years and learning more about its fascinating prehistoric past at places like skara brae and the ring of brodgar. with a history stretching back more than 5,000 years, it's no surprise that orkney is a place of myth and legend, where it seems that everyone has a story to tell. this story takes place on the island of stronsay, one of the north isles in orkney, and it involves a young lady by the name of ursula. you don't see so many fairies around the west mainland any more, and there is a reason for that. you see, a terrible thing happened long ago. there was a terrible... ..and she could make her own choices about who she married. and she owned everything around her. stories have been around as long as language has been around. and these stories are very much part of our cultural identity. part of what makes orcadians, orcadians. orkney's quite a unique place. we have, you know, 5,000—year—old villages still standing, you know, stone circles. just standing on a shore and watching huge breakers rolling in from the atlantic ocean, it's really quite hypnotic. violent but peaceful at the same time. and it was always that ever—present risk and danger from the sea as well. that has a strong influence on the folktales. orkney has a very, very rich heritage of folklore about the strange creatures, about the selkie folk who are half seal and half human. every mound in a field has its little goblins and fairies and brownies. you know, every age that... that humans go through, there's the search for some sort of spiritual meaning, those kind of connections with the land or the sea or the sky. and i think folklore is a way of exploring those things. the orkney storytelling festival is in its tenth year in its present form. we have wonderful invited storytellers who come from all over the world. sometimes the stories are very similar. you know, a lot of places have a creation myth about how an island was formed or how a mountain came to be. and there's a lot of similarities. it's wonderful if people come and hear a story from africa or a story from norway or a story from north america, a story from orkney. and they think, "i wonder if there are any stories "about the place that i come from?" now, we're going to hear from a lot of different people today, friends from near and far. you can decide at the end if this really happened. i the waves were coming up over the harbour. the wind was blowing... and every single time she broke a lump off, a mouse fell out until there was a whole squad of mice. the next day, hare showed up at otter's place and otter had | prepared a beautiful feast for him. - tonight is the last night of the orkney storytelling festival and it's the grand finale. so it's the absolute best of the best. applause she had no money left. she had her hair done, she had a nice, new dress. audience laughs the next young man had spit on the coals of the fire - and the coals flame up... i think stories really unite people. and i think if you have this shared experience and shared cultural heritage, it does make you stronger because...especially if there are values in the stories that you really identify with and that are really important to you. say, yes, i belong to the culture that owns these stories. for storytelling and the folklore to survive, it has to have a framework. it has to be an organised thing. and that's one of the reasons that we do what we do. it's one of the reasons why we have the festival. from the highlands and islands, we're heading to a city that has an identity very much all of its own. glasgow is well known for its proud industrial history and its gritty humour, but it's also the most multicultural city in scotland, a fact that came to the fore when we went looking for a new take on a scottish tradition earlier this year. january in scotland can be a dreich affair. the days are short, the weather cold and wet. maybe that's why back in 1801, a group of friends came up with an event to warm up the winter nights and celebrate the life of our national bard — robert burns. burns night is a lively evening of poetry, performance and what's probably scotland's most famous meal. so this is what you usually get in a traditional burns supper. you've got tatties, or mashed potatoes, neeps, aka swede, and taking centre stage, you've got the beloved haggis. haggis has achieved near—mythical status for its often grotesque description as throwaway beef and lamb offal, spices and oats. it's all bundled into a sheep's belly and boiled for hours. it's salty, it's meaty and delicious, and it's personally one of my favourite things to eat. in my family, burns night often coincides with chinese new year, which takes place over 15 days at the beginning of the lunar calendar. like burns night, it's all about friends and family coming together for a massive feast. so my friends and i, we host our own special event and we call it chinese burns, where we serve dishes from both cultures at the same time. i'm on the hunt for a culinary twist on the burns supper that will be the centrepiece of my next chinese burns evening. hello. how are you doing? hello. lovely to meet you, jimmy. how are you? so it's chinese new year and it's burns night happening around the same time. what am i going to make for my party? nick, you'll be making a haggis with eddo, spring rolls with a chilli whisky dip. so, first of all, we've got some eddo, which is a chinese root veg. right. similar to potatoes, but a wee bit more nuttier and a wee bit more sweet. a bit more... a bit hairier. a bit hairier as well! obviously, the hero of the dish is the haggis. yes. i'm just going to put some carrots in it to add a wee bit of crunch. right. okey dokey. so what are you cooking up first? well, it's the slow process ofjust peeling the eddoes first. do you often try to incorporate scottish traditional ingredients in your chinese cooking? yeah, yeah. all the time. whether it's the ingredients we use, like the ayrshire pork or aberdeen angus steak. with the eddoes peeled, jimmy pops them into a steamer. he then slices the haggis and throws it into a wok. wok fried haggis. wok fried haggis! there's a first for everything. that sounds brilliant. oh, look at that! and then we're just going to mash that up. look at that, there's your asian tatties. now we've got all our ingredients that we can just use and wrap up. tight against it so you can feel the haggis there. mine looks like an envelope as opposed to a roll. i don't know what's gone wrong there. it looks like a purse. yeah. i leave it to jimmy to fry the rolls and rustle up his chilli whisky dip. bagpipes play but we're still missing one key ingredient. a piper�*s the perfect accompaniment to any burns supper, however unconventional it might be. oh, wow. look at that. looks amazing. let's dig in, shall we? let's go for it. piper plays auld lang syne pastry crunches that's so good. that's so tasty. i can actually taste the haggis, which is surprising. i thought it'd get lost in there, but it's actually really nice. slainte mhath. giving burns night a whole new twist earlier this year. well, if you've fallen in love with scotland so much that you fancy moving there, how about snapping up a castle? you'll find over 2,000 of them there. although, it has to be said, some of them need a whole lot more attention thanjust a lick of paint and a set of new curtains, as william lee adams found out when we sent him on a property hunt. we'll leave you with him searching for a typically understated new home. and see you all again next week. this is baltersan castle, a 16th century tower home 50 miles southwest of glasgow. it's safe to say it's in need of some serious restoration. james bought it in 1992 with great hopes to restore it back to its former glory. but finding the right investor has been hard. now, the stairwell, very wide for the period. it all speaks of good design and speaks of wealth. you would ascend these stairs, you wouldn't climb, you would ascend. james, what was your vision when you purchased the castle? oh, i could see it. that's the problem. it's a burden if you have vision. because i could see the walls, the painted decoration, the tapestries. it's the old story of a boyhood dream. some people want train sets, i wanted a castle at the age of five. so this brings us into the kitchen area, the wine cellar, the storage for meat. and this wonderful arch here is a very common feature. and that fire that would have been in there for the cooking was kept on all the time because stone is like a storage heater. there's a 16th century mill. there's an 18th century croft house down here. there's the 16th century tower and a 13th century abbey. they should be linked as a linear tourist destination. i can tell this place brings you a lot ofjoy. you light up when you talk about it. but on some level, do you ever regret having purchased it? never. no, absolutely never. it's magic. it's the sense of place thatjust an ordinary, ruined building doesn't have. there's a spirit in this place. i don't care if i don't restore it, but it should be restored by somebody — the next custodian, not owner. on face value, owning a castle could cost less than a studio apartment in london. cameron's been in the business of selling grand country homes for the past 15 years. well, if you take the example of the one behind me here, . there's obviously. a lot of work to do. this is a property on the . buildings at risk register, it's category a listed. so there will be restrictions i in what you can and can't do, materials that - you've got to use. so there are limitations - and considerations that also have significant . cost implications. do people have any misconceptions when they start their search for a castle? yes. yeah. the first thing to highlight is they don't all come - with a title. many people assume that - you become lord of the manor, but i'm afraid it's. not quite that case. but what happens if your family already has the castle? how do you keep it from becoming a financial drain? nice to meet you. so nice to meet you. so lovely to meet you. welcome. nice to meet you. this is quite the welcome. hello! ali's family has lived on these grounds since the 1500s, though his great—grandfather built this place at the turn of the 20th century, moving the family out of the now ruined castle. the couple met in vietnam and lived in the us before moving back to ali's ancestral home eight years ago. and what was the state of the place when you first saw it? it was winter when i first arrived and saw the place for the very first time. the blinds were drawn. there were so many dust sheets on tables and furniture. everything was really dark. had a bit of a morgue feel to it, to be honest. so this room is particularly personal to me because it is very much based on my idea of victoriana meets east asian. the estate had mostly welcomed hunting parties and wanted to move away from that tradition and focus on other types of gatherings, like weddings. though it needed a major revamp. a lot of people dream of owning a castle and they don't think through the reality. do you have any advice for potential buyers? if you are thinking about doing anything like this and your first motivation is profitability, it is not going to work. i love my husband and this is me helping to fulfil his dream. and ali, it was significantly easier for him to be motivated to do this project because it is his ancestral home. dinner soon comes around, but before we sit down anne says she has a little surprise. door creaks what? what is this? this is for you to pick out your outfit for dinner. ok, this was obviously for me. the fairies in southwest scotland are working tonight. i think you should definitely wear this. oh, my god, that is so you! gong rings part of the experience involves an outrageous dinner party with the guests. dinner is served. what would your ancestors think about what's going on tonight? i think they liked fun nights, will. you know, my great—grandfather built this house for entertaining. but i'm curious, when anne married you and moved here and suggested these changes, how did that sit with you? actually, it was fine, and i wouldn't have done it without her. so it was good to have that breath of fresh air. owning and running a castle as a tourist attraction is not for the faint hearted. but if you can make it work, it's not a bad life. music continues hello, there. let's take a brief look now at the weather for the week ahead. so, friday was still rather chilly, mostly dry, the sunshine again best towards the west. but this time a lot brighter across the south of england, east anglia in particular, with a lot of blue sky around. but it is going to be turning more unsettled as we head through the weekend. there will be plenty more in the way of cloud, outbreaks of rain at times, and we have still got that chilly and brisk easterly wind blowing, but it should be largely frost—free. and that, of course, is because of the increased amount of cloud as this low pressure continues to roll its way northwards and eastwards, as we head throughout the course of the weekend, introducing the cloud and the spells of rain. so, as we start off saturday morning, it's quite a wet start, showery outbreaks of rain across southwest england, moving into wales, into the midlands and northern england, also northern ireland seing some outbreaks of rain as well. we've still got the easterly wind but it turns more south—easterly as we cross southeast england. here, some brighter skies, and temperatures will be higher, 13—14 degrees. but feeling cold again in exposure to that easterly wind towards the north sea—facing coasts. and on saturday night, well, it is just more of the same. more rain, just gradually lifting its way northwards as we head through the night. it will be frost—free. but just across the shelter glands of scotland, if we do see any clearer spells, we could see temperatures perhaps dip back to low single figures. and as we head through sunday, well, that area of low pressure continues to show its hand, bringing further outbreaks of rain, just pushing in from the south, moving further northwards throughout the day. so, plenty of rain to come in the forecast for england, wales, and northern ireland, even some rain now across parts of scotland. although, there will be a lot of dry weather too as we head throughout the day. something to bear in mind if you're out and about the mother's day, of course, and it's still feeling cold towards these north sea—facing coasts, just six degrees celsius here in aberdeen. now, as we head through sunday and into the start of next week, that low pressure gradually pulls its way further eastwards. we have still got easterly wind, so again towards north sea—facing coasts, it is going to feel quite cold with added windchill, but the winds are a lot lighter. and there will be a lot of dry weather around as well on monday with plenty of cloud towards parts of northern england, wales, northern ireland, scotland, but a little brighter further south. but not too much improvement at all in terms of temperature, again, just 6—10 degrees. and on tuesday, well, it is more of the same, but you'll notice that the winds are a lot lighter. now, this is the most likely scenario on tuesday. we could possibly see some of this rain just spiral in from the south and west but at the moment it does look largely dry. a few showers again towards the north sea—facing coasts, perhaps, but lots of dry weather, plenty of cloud and, again, temperatures will be high single figures, low double figures, perhaps starting to creep up a little, particularly given any brightness towards the south. but then we look out towards the southwest, out of the atlantic, where we see more low pressure systems just gradually push their way in from the southwest, moving northwards and eastwards as we head through the rest of the week. so, it is going to be quite wet, spells of rain, some windy weather as well low pressure around. but we with a southwesterly when we are also expecting some mild conditions, so temperatures are likely to rise. you can see thatjust marked with yellow here, that milder feeling from the southwest. here is the temperature outlook some of our cities as we head through the rest of the week. as you can see, it is going to be really rather unsettled. further spells of rain, particularly heavy out towards the west but also some milder—feeling conditions as the temperatures are set to rise. bye— bye. live from london, this is bbc news. the eu says a maritime aid corridor from cyprus to gaza could start operating this weekend to try to ease the humanitarian situation there. meanwhile, the united states says it could take up to 60 days for a temporary port to be built, as the un warns a quarter of people in gaza are on the brink of famine. in england, the health ombudsman says cancer patients are being put at risk because the health service is overstretched and understaffed. and from hard working gun dogs to primped to perfection poodles, the international dog competition crufts builds up to the best in show this weekend.

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