If your image of Edinburgh involves cute men in kilts wolfing down haggis before battling each other with broadswords on the way to the nearest ceilidh, then think again. Your average citizen is far more likely to be donning the latest designer gear or sipping a cafe latte in one of the city’s trendy cafes before slipping off for a night of funky clubbing. Edinburgh 1998-style is no quaint, provincial backwater, far closer in ambience to the movie Trainspotting than Braveheart, Edinburgh is a city emerging as one of the most vibrant and cosmopolitan in Europe.

The immediate source of Edinburgh’s confident renaissance is obvious. Last September the Labour government kept its election promise and allowed the Scottish people to choose their own future. They did and chose overwhelmingly to opt for a devoluted Scotland and their own parliament, a decision nationalists see as the first step down the road to full independence. This decision to rupture the union with England surprised many foreigners. I’ve been asked by people as eclectic as beer maids at the Oktoberfest to Chinese immigrant workers in Hong Kong why we are splitting up when the rest of Europe is meant to be coming together.

The desire for an independent nation has always been a strong one for the Scots and many natives have always felt a breed apart from the English and spiritually closer to Europe than London. For example, Scotland’s greatest writers, Walter Scott and Robert Burns, were revered all over the continent but barely recognised by the English. The English writer T.S. Eliot in 1919 asked: “Was there ever a Scottish literature?” An arrogant attitude that sums up why many Scots have become disillusioned with their southern counterparts.

Today’s visitors may notice little immediate physical change but that will soon come with a new parliament building. Appropriately for a nation with a reputation as one of the world’s heaviest drinkers, it will be on the site of a former brewery. In the meantime the parliament will be housed in the Church of Scotland building just below the castle. There are grand plans to jazz up the Royal Mile — the street that leads down to the new Parliament — as well as install a tram system to transport delegates and tourists around the city centre.

It is not just the new parliament that is changing the face of Edinburgh. At the western end of the main thoroughfare of Princes Street a state-of-the-art financial district has sprung up, complete with mini-skyscrapers, as Edinburgh cements its position as one of Europe’s fast-developing financial centres. At Edinburgh airport there are a record number of flights to what is one of Britain’s fastest growing airports and, back in town, Leith was chosen above contenders from all over Britain to be the last resting place of the Queen’s favourite mode of transport, the royal yacht Britannia. Britannia will be the centrepiece of a new Ocean Terminal that aims to attract international cruise liners.

Any travellers coming back to Edinburgh after a few years will notice another unlikely arrival. Edinburgh claims to have the highest number of pubs per capita in Europe and recent additions to the numerous traditional drinking dens are four conspicuous antipodean arrivals.

The first one was Oz Bar on Candlemaker Row which comes complete with surfboards, “skippy” burgers and Fosters on tap. The owner says he tries to attract people from all sectors of Edinburgh’s populace, “but my regulars are mainly Aussie and Kiwi travellers”. Such has been the success of Oz Bar that they have opened another outlet just across the road. Another massive Aussie drinking den called Bar Oz has sprung up just across from the city’s main university. To complete the quartet, Uluru on Lothian Road has just opened. The cafe/bar ambience of this watering hole cater to a slightly more upmarket visitor.

It is not just the influence from Down Under that’s spicing up the city streets. The days when most pubs had sawdust on the floors to mop up the blood from fights and any male ordering anything short of a double whisky was barracked as a ‘softie’ — or something less polite — have largely disappeared, at least in the city centre. At the West End the nine-to-five office crowd exchange mobile phone numbers over cocktails at Ryans and Rutland No. 1 while the recently opened Indigo Yard offers a sweaty, painfully-hip, pre-club ambience. Up in the old town, the City Cafe on Blair Street has the appearance of an American diner while Iguana on Lothian Street looks more like one of Terrance Conran’s posh London restaurants than a bar.

Edinburgh’s The List noted in their 1998 Food and Drink Guide that there had been a massive increase in new restaurant openings with many offering far from traditional Scots cuisine. There’s not a haggis in sight in any of Pierre Victoire’s six French eateries (there were only two branches four years ago), or at Kubla Khan’s second Mongolian restaurant, a unique experience that allows you to cook your own Central Asian food. Add to that Thai, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Mexican and Caribbean and you’ve got a myriad of international dining options.

Edinburgh’s cosmopolitan revelry reaches its zenith in the last two weeks of August and the first couple of weeks of September when the world’s largest Arts Festival rolls into town. The whole city centre bursts to life with street entertainers ranging from jugglers and clowns to buskers and fire eaters. There are literally thousands of theatre performances and various art projects from all over the globe but make sure you book accommodation and transport early. In the old days there were only a handful of hostels in Edinburgh. In the last couple of years hostels have been springing up on every street corner and a few years ago two companies — Go Blue Banana and Haggis Backpackers — started running short guided trips from Edinburgh through the Highlands.

Edinburgh is as far removed from Braveheart as it is from London and is a city intent on celebrating its position as the capital of the newly devolved Scotland.

Choose Edinburgh, Choose Loch Ness. Choose the Isle of Skye. Nah, choose something a bit different if you want to see the real Scotland. Thanks to some cosy package deals Scotland has been tied up in neat wee bundle of attractions. Most travellers don’t even think twice before disappearing in a mini-bus for their three-day rattle around the well worn routes — but there are alternatives.

Billed as Britain’s biggest town, Inverness is still very much on the backpacker trail, but a few days there provides a glimpse at a way of life very different from cosmopolitan Edinburgh and Glasgow.

There are plenty of hostels and pubs, and even a couple of clubs to keep you going in a town that still has a rough-and-ready pioneer feel about it. There may be no rampaging Highland hordes today, but there are still kilted locals with incomprehensible brogues.

Sights around town include a castle and an ornate church, but Inverness’ main charm is its laid-back ambience. For a relaxing stroll head down to the River Ness and meander upstream to the island studded park where you can lose yourself in the greenery and fresh air that is a welcome relief after the smog induced nightmare and traffic congestion of the cities. The Ness Islands also double as those tourist shots of the remote Highlands you promised your parents, but don’t actually have time to visit.

On the east coast and about a scenic two-and-a-half-hour train ride from Edinburgh, is the affluent city of Aberdeen boosted by the oil industry and definitely not a major player on the backpacker circuit. But, it does offer a slice of real Scottish life. One of its most famous sons, the writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon, once called it Scotland’s most “hauntingly and exasperatingly loveable city”.

Aberdeen’s architecture is stunning in a dull, grey sort of way. Granite is the buzz word here with everything around the city forged from this tough stone. Aberdeen, though, bustles with nightlife as bars and clubs turn it on to keep both the oil workers and the large student population happy.

And if you’re missing the breakers on Bondi, Aberdeen also boasts a thriving surf culture, albeit a very cold one. On weekends you can join the dozens of brave souls who battle the freezing surf on the city’s windswept beach.

But one of the most neglected areas of Scotland is the Borders region. Many travellers roll into Edinburgh, rattle round the Highlands and bus back south, snoozing their way through the Borders. What they miss out on is an area rolling with centuries of history and blessed with sweeping scenery. The towns of Jedburgh, Galashiels and Kelso are all worth a visit. The neat, compact town of Hawick (a two and half hour bus ride from Edinburgh) is a good base with a hostel and tourist attractions detailing the history of the Borders.

Hawick hit the headlines recently as local women tried to gatecrash the male dominated ”Common Riding” annual festival — an equestrian spectacle, which to many outsiders, appears to be a group of grown men frolicking around on horses, embarrassing themselves by crying now and then. Local lass Shirley Scott explained the significance saying: “It’s an ancient tradition we are all proud of. It commemorates defeating the English centuries ago, something we don’t seem to do much of nowadays.”

Probably the most alternative Scottish destination is the picturesque town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Berwick is a poignant place to grab an insight into England and Scotland as it is here that English and Scots meet in a town which feels very much on the border.

On days when the locals aren’t split down the middle on football or rugby, you can enjoy the peaceful atmosphere of a town set spectacularly on the shores of the wild North Sea. You can easily spend a couple of days relaxing here and it’s only a four hour train journey from London.

If you manage to get to any of the places listed here you’ll get a different view of Scotland, an alternative to the traveller norm. Don’t forget, though, about the rest of Scotland.

It is one of those few nations where the hype of the main tourist attractions are actually outdone by the attractions themselves.

Most nations around the world will soon be celebrating New Year, but only one will be celebrating Hogmanay. This ancient and totally unique Scottish way of bringing in the new year transforms the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, into a heaving party zone of festivals, burgeoning culture and drunken revelry, but this year unless you’ve got a ticket it may not be your best ever New Year.

Founded in 1993 with a crowd of a mere 50,000, the official Hogmanay bash has mushroomed into a gathering that last year attracted around 300,000 people. But last year’s celebrations were a victim of their own success. Revellers flocked to Edinburgh from all over the world to join the biggest New Year bash on the planet and authorities had trouble controlling the massive crowd.

This year organisers have capped the numbers for the street party for the first time, stripping the party down to a more manageable 180,000. But there will still be enough people to make it the world’s largest new year party. If you want one of the free tickets for the street party and have not yet applied then you have little chance of getting one independently as all passes have already been snapped up. Another option is to join one of the organised tours that are advertised in the travel pages of TNT but make sure they have tickets for the street party.

For the uninitiated Hogmanay needs a bit of explaining — it has its origins in the French word for last day of the year, “aquillanneuf”, and the Norman shout when presents were given or received “hoguignettes”. Traces of Hogmanay go back a long way in Scotland’s turbulent history, but it only came to the fore during the Reformation when Christmas was dismissed by Protestants as a largely Popish festival. Ironically, this meant the pagan customs of Hogmanay became increasingly popular and overtook Christmas in importance in the Scottish calendar.

Many traditions surrounded Hogmanay in those days. On the Isle of Skye the hide from a beast killed during the day was burned, with every guest having to sniff the smoke to ward off evil spirits. If the hide went out during sniffing this was meant to bring extremely bad luck to the holder. In some areas young boys covered themselves with the hide of a bull, with the horns and hoofs still attached. Another tradition was to singe a sheep’s breast and pass it around to be held at revellers’ noses. Don’t worry, though, most of these ancient traditions have now disappeared forever and the focus has moved on to outright drunken debauchery.

While the main celebration is on the night of December 31 and the morning of January l, the festival rattles on for six days around that period.

Edinburgh’s madcap Hogmanay kicks off on December 29 with a torchlit procession that leaves Parliament Square at 5.30pm and snakes its way through the city centre. Don’t worry if you can’t squeeze your flaming torch into your rucksack as you can buy torches for £5 in Parliament Square.

On December 30 there’s the Reel to Reel Ceilidh at the Assembly Rooms (ticket £12). For those not yet familiar with the quaint vagaries of Scottish culture this is an impossibly difficult communal dance that becomes incredibly easy and lucid after copious amounts of alcohol. Join the locals and head for the bar and you’ll be fine.

On the big night itself there’s a candlelit concert at St Giles Cathedral at 7.30pm before the street party kicks off at 10.30pm. This is Scotland’s largest example of “First Footing” — the most famous tradition from the old days that survives.

Traditionally it was considered good luck that the first person to enter the house in the new year should be a dark-haired male stranger who should have a gift of a lump of coal — this symbolised warmth and fuel.

These traditions have both largely gone now, and in Edinburgh people have dropped the idea of going around neighbouring houses and spill onto the streets instead. Right through the “wee sma hours” the streets are packed with revellers exchanging greetings, hugs and drunken affection. At midnight the main thoroughfare, Princes Street and the Royal Mile, famous as the ancient cobbled route to Edinburgh’s castle, transforms into a mile-long party. This heaving mass of happy souls enjoying themselves in one of the most beautiful cities in Europe is enough to warm even the chilliest Scottish night.

If you are sneaky there is another way to gain entry for the big night. Snap up tickets for the Concert in the Gardens for £12 or £14 (featuring Texas and a fiddle orchestra), the New Year Revels party at the Assembly Rooms (£25), the Tartan Tear-Up club (£25) or a performance of the Bloody Chamber(£9). With any of these performances you automatically get a free ticket to the street party. When the sun creeps up over Edinburgh on January l most revellers will have had a good drink and many will not even have thought about going to bed yet. But at least one place in the city will be up early and raring to go.

For the clinically insane there is nothing better than the Lothian Health Triathlon — just the thing to shake off the previous night’s hangover. First up is a 400m dash in Edinburgh’s Commonwealth pool, then an 11-mile cycle three times around the dormant Arthur’s Seat volcano, culminating in a gruelling 3.3 mile run once around Arthur’s Seat. Entry fee is £12. By January 2 and 3 events are starting to tail off, but you can still catch the Hogmanay Carnival funfair at Waterloo Place on the 2nd or if you are wanting to enrich your brain cells rather than continue destroying them there is a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Assembly Hall (tickets £5-£I2). At llpm on January 3 Edinburgh’s Hogmanay officially comes to an end.

If you do decide to head up north to welcome in 1998 come prepared and don’t come expecting just another New Year. What you will get is one of the most fabulous party nights in the world, a chaotic and wonderful mix of culture, music and dance, bonfires and fireworks, and best of all, that world famous Scottish hospitality that guarantees the experience will be one you won’t forget.