EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

IRVINE , twelve miles north of Ayr, was once the principal port for trade between Glasgow and Ireland, and later for coal from Kilmarnock, its halcyon days recalled by the enjoyable Scottish Maritime Museum (April-Oct daily 10am-5pm; £2.50), which is spread across several locations down at the town's beautifully restored old harbour. The best place to start is in the late nineteenth-century Linthouse Engine Shop , on Harbour Road, a hangar-like building housing everything from old sailing dinghies and canoes to a giant ship's turbines, and a kids' corner for learning Morse code and semaphore. Free guided tours set off regularly for the nearby Shipbuilder's Flat , which has been restored to something like its appearance in 1910, when a family of six to eight would have occupied its two rooms and scullery. You're also shown round the rusting hulk of the SV Carrick , the world's oldest colonial clipper, currently in a parlous state. Moored at the pontoons on Harbour Street is an assortment of craft, which you can board, including a tug, a trawler, a "puffer" boat and the SY Carola , the oldest seagoing steam yacht in the country.

Close by, opposite Magnum ( ), Scotland's largest leisure and swimming complex, a funky retracting footbridge leads visitors to Irvine's newest attraction, the Big Idea (daily 10am-6pm; ; £7.95), a half-submerged glass eye of a building with a turf roof. The theme of the place is invention, and it has endless high-tech hands-on exhibits where children can play with robots, check out a toilet flush system, and get to grips with the scientific principles of cams, rods, levers, gears and valves. There's also a "pink-knuckle" ride called The History of Explosions , which is little more than a promotional film for the munitions industry, watched from jolting seats. More informative is the nearby static exhibition telling the story of Nobel's Explosives Company (later to become ICI), which once ran the world's largest explosives factory on the Ardeer peninsula behind the museum.

Arriving at Irvine's adjacent train or bus stations , you'll find yourself exactly halfway between the harbour, to the west, and the Riverfront shopping complex and old town, to the east. The tourist office (July & Aug Mon-Sat 10am-4pm; Easter-June, Sept & Oct Tues-Sat 10am-4pm; tel 01294/313886) is situated near the stations beside the shopping mall's giant car park. Kilwinning Road, heading north out of Irvine, has several inexpensive B&Bs ; should you wish to pamper yourself a bit more, head for Annfield House , 6 Castle St (tel 01294/278903; £70-90), a big Victorian mansion overlooking the river at the end of Sandgate, that has spacious bedrooms and its own bar and restaurant .