SALLY SHALAM CONTINUES HER TRAVELS AROUND THE UK BY CAR, WITH THE HELP OF LEADING CAR HIRE COMPANY HERTZ, TO FIND GREAT SPOTS FOR YOU TO DISCOVER AND RELAX. IF YOU ARE PLANNING A TRIP TO THE FRINGE FESTIVAL, TAKE TIME OUT TO EXPLORE THE SCOTTISH BORDERS WHILE THERE

From a five-span stone bridge in Peebles, I watched the River Tweed flow through this market town, lively with shoppers and al fresco coffee drinkers enjoying a hot summer’s day. Touring less than 25 miles south of the capital city of Edinburgh, the River Tweed, one of Britain’s great salmon rivers, was never far from sight, whether from a waterside town or an elevated vantage point, such as Scott’s View. From this beauty spot, accessible from a layby signposted off the A68 east of Melrose, the Tweed’s silvery course threaded through a vista of upright pines and buttercup-strewn fields. The Eildon Hills rose in the distance under an almost cloudless sky. The roads, incidentally, hemmed with wild rose, were almost deserted. Smugly, I thought of heaving summertime traffic in the south of England.

Then there was walking the riverbank, to the chuckle of water over stones, dipping my toes in the cool depths. I did that in the grounds at Abbotsford, the 19th-century Scottish Baronial-style home completed for Sir Walter Scott in 1824. The literary titan, whose classics include Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, was also an antiquarian and collector. The house is a treasure box. Shafts of sunlight pierce the entrance hall’s gloom, illuminating panelling of black oak, coats of arms and an ornate stone fireplace. In the study, the very desk at which Scott wrote, made by Gillow of London, sits beneath a gallery of leather-bound books. More tomes, in staggering number, each and every one collected by Scott, line the library’s expanse, then the drawing room, hung with exquisite hand-painted Chinese wallpaper. The dining room is where he breathed his last, lying on a little bed made up for him beside a window from which he could see his beloved river course b