My first visit to Scotland came July 2018, when a friend invited me to join a “concert” tour of pubs and taverns. Our tiny troupe of musicians and music lovers caravaned from the Glasgow-Edinburgh duopolis in the southern “belt” to Aberdeen and Inverness on the northeast coast. We gaped at the creepily gothic Sir Walter Scot memorial in Edinburgh and strolled the shops on the Royal Mile. An hour or so west on the A8, we immersed ourselves in the Glasgow Style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald. In the Highlands we topped the Cairngorms and got a good look at Ben Nevis, the tallest torr. We marveled at ScotRail’s graceful long, curving aqueducts and snaked the serpentine length of the Malt Whiskey Trail in Speyside. And every day ended with a jam session of Scottish folk tunes and potent Scottish ale or single malt. Here’s a collection of scenes from that trip.