2 Best Sights in The Borders and the Southwest, Scotland

The Isle of Whithorn (a fishing village on the mainland) holds the ruins of the 14th-century St. Ninian's Chapel, where pilgrims who came by sea prayed before traveling inland to Whithorn Priory. Some people claim that this, and not Whithorn Priory, is the site of the Candida Casa, a 4th-century church. The structure seems to have been erected on top of a much older chapel built around 1100. It's 4 miles south of Whithorn.

The road that is now the A746 was a pilgrims' path that led to the royal burgh of Whithorn, where sat Whithorn Priory, one of Scotland's great medieval cathedrals, now an empty shell. It was built in the 12th century and is said to occupy the site of a former stone church, the Candida Casa, built by St. Ninian in the 4th century. As the story goes, the church housed a shrine to Ninian, the earliest of Scotland's saints, and kings and barons tried to visit the shrine at least once in their lives. As you approach the priory, observe the royal arms of pre-1707 Scotland—that is, Scotland before the Union Act with England—carved and painted above the pend (covered walkway). The museum houses restored stonework from the period, including crosses and a reconstructed Celtic circular home.