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As a Canadian of Scottish heritage I was looking forward to Homecoming 2009, a 12-month event welcoming back the Scottish diaspora to celebrate Scotland’s contributions to the world, as well as the 250th anniversary of poet Robert Burns’ birth. Although we didn’t sample the official Homecoming offerings, we did commemorate in our own way by absorbing the history, grandeur and beauty of the place.

There were Gothic arches and staunch guardians of ancient abbeys and palaces; glimpses through Georgian skylights, evoking the ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment. The reverberation of the stones and motifs made it easy to grasp the character of those Scots who crossed an ocean to make new lives in the distant wilderness: Canada was the adopted home of leading nation builders John A. MacDonald, Simon Fraser, Sanford Fleming, Robert Service and Donald Alexander Smith, the steam behind The Canadian Pacific Railway.

But it’s not just about history in beautiful Edinburgh where the vibrant Fringe Festival was in full swing . . .

The Scottish capital was a riot of colour and energy; artists, tourists, actors, buskers and families filled the streets making it a claustrophobic’s nightmare to walk the Royal Mile. I was especially struck by the constant synergy of old and new.

No trip to Scotland would be complete without at least one brush with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art (no photography inside, please). The soot-covered masonry exteriors were a wonder — hey, there’s Mac’s wife Margaret and her sister Frances, lyrical sentinels over the front door, above. What a relief!

We also appreciated the magnificent wrought-iron mullions and the basket-hilted, claymore-inspired bracket details, above. Contrast those with the windows of the new (1999) Scottish Parliament, below, a controversial work by Spanish architect Enric Miralles.

“The forms are new and strange,” writes author Alan Balfour (Creating a Scottish Parliament), “the complexity results from being formed as if out of nature, allowing free and informal association of the parts and plays. It appears ambiguous because nothing like it has been seen before, this unfamiliarity and originality is a gift to Scotland’s imagination. (Apart from the work of Mackintosh, I cannot think of any other work in Scotland’s modern history, which could be so described).”

All photos by Alan Bulley.