by There is something about Robert Burns. Scotland’s national poet has more statues around the world than any other literary poet and arguably wrote the world’s most famous song – the New Year’s song and the earworm Auld Lang Syne. Not bad for a man who was born in poverty in Ayr in 1759.
But maybe it was because Burns was a dreamer who fought for everything that wasn’t given to him. He was also a prolific philanderer (he fathered at least a dozen children), a committed drinker and a passionate advocate for Scottish independence. But above all, he was an idealistic internationalist whose firm belief that “A Man’s a Man for A’ That” shone through his work, whether in English or his native Scots.
There is only one place to start a deeper dive into the poet’s life: the simple thatched cottage where he was born on 25 January 1759 in the small Ayrshire village of Alloway, now a museum. Much of the village is dedicated to Burns; it is a kind of literary time envelope carved in stone. An umbrella website of the National Trust for Scotland pulls it all together; handily they can all be easily reached on foot.
The ‘Poet’s Path’ – alive with sculptures and characters from Burns’ poems – leads from Burns House to the brilliantly done modern Burns Museum.
All the main exhibits are written in Scots, with English translations available; the importance of Scots which makes visitors think of Scots as a separate language in a way that Burns would have been delighted with. Don’t miss the cafe, where visitors can enjoy a Burns supper, and young poets can play outside in the replica Burns Cottage playhouse.
Nearby is the 21m tall Burns Monument, which overlooks a well-tended rose garden (Burns’ favorite flower). Designed by Sir Thomas Hamilton Junior in the 1820s, the monument’s nine columns represent muses from Greek mythology; a nod to how Burns took inspiration from the Classics as much as he did Mother Nature.
Following in the footsteps of Tam o’ Shanter (the title character of one of his best poems) he leads visitors to the ruins of Alloway Auld Kirk, and down to the original Brig o’Doon. This stone arch bridge has been saved from demolition several times and has changed little since Burns crossed it every day with his dad on his way to work. To walk his path is to literally walk in the poet’s footsteps.
For Burns fans looking for more local landmarks, there’s Souter Johnnie’s home in Kirkoswald, an 18th-century shoemaker’s workshop that died in Tam o’Shanter.
Among Burns’ attractions in Ayrshire is the Bachelors’ Club in Tarbolton, where Burns is said to have learned ‘dancing and debating’ – it was Burns who devised its ’10 rules of membership’. Then there is the Burns House Museum in Mauchline, where Robert Burns lived and worked between 1784 and 1788.
With his heritage written all over the south of Scotland, it can be as difficult to work out an itinerary as trying to translate his Scots into English without losing its romance.
Fortunately, a new 187-mile Burns Trail has just been announced, guiding travelers on a six-day adventure from Eyemouth, on the east coast, across the range of the Borders to Dunpris in the west. This driving route is inspired by Burns’ 1787 tour of southern Scotland, with calls to the three romantically ruined abbeys of Kelso, Jedburgh and Melrose that fired his imagination, before retreating to Dunpris and Galloway. .
Ayrshire will always be Burns country, but it was the historic market town of Dumfries where he spent his later years. After years of struggling to become the self-educated tenant farmer he dreamed of at Ellisland Farm (open to the public as a modest museum just north of Dumfries) and praise in his writing, he retreated to Dunmry, and has the town so necessary now. stop for Burns devotees like Alloway.
Burns House is a must, where he lived from 1791 until his death in 1796. In this simple sandstone townhouse you can see the famous Kilmarnock and Edinburgh editions of his works, as well as the simple study where he wrote some of his favorite poems.
Another plus is The Globe Inn – it may have been recently restored, but the Burns verse is still etched on the windows and the tradition continues if a visitor can’t recite Burns in his old chair then they pay for the round. Either way, there’s no better place to raise a little dram for the man himself.
From the Globe Inn, the Robert Burns Trail leads out around the market town of Dumfries, crossing the Nith, as Burns himself would have done when he was working as an exciseman. The trail passes his statue in the pedestrianized heart of the town, then resumes his story at the Robert Burns Centre, a popular cinema with a Burns exhibition.
A natural end to the walk is St Michael’s Kirkyard, where the poet was laid to rest after dying of rheumatic fever aged 37. He now lies in the specially commissioned Burns Mausoleum alongside his widow , Jean Armour, and five of their widows. children. It wasn’t always this way: before it was moved in 1817, it was first buried under a simple, inconspicuous stone – an inappropriate tribute that appalled William and Dorothy Wordsworth, admired by visiting pilgrims and Burns. .
A Burns-inspired pilgrimage to Edinburgh is also on the cards. Not that the Scottish capital has always accepted the man: the head of the city haut monde His radical nationalism was often too appalling for the day and women’s ways to fully recognize his talents during his lifetime. But he certainly made his mark on the city – he settled in with a dram at the White Hart Inn, on the Haymarket, where Burns used to hold court in the face of the city’s gallows, or faced another of his , Deacon Brodie’s Tavern. on the Royal Mile. Edinburgh Literary Pub Tuas weaves Burns’ stories with pits at some of the city’s most historic watering holes.
Meanwhile, the Writers’ Museum houses an impressive collection of Robert Burns’ works, manuscripts and personal effects, as well as portraits and a writing desk from his Dunpris home. But perhaps the most famous of his likenesses hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, brilliantly captured by his friend and fellow radical Alexander Nasmyth. It’s a thrilling, dramatic portrait that Burns himself would no doubt have raised a glass to – for the sake, of course, of Auld Lang Syne.
