Scottish Highlands

A beaming Duchess of York left the hospital on Friday with her still-unnamed baby girl asleep in her arms. The 5-day-old infant, fifth in line to the British throne, was wrapped in a white shawl with only a hint of her reddish hair visible to nearly 2,000 people waiting outside the central London hospital. Well-wishers cheered the red-haired duchess, the former Sarah Ferguson, as she emerged from the hospital, accompanied by her husband, Prince Andrew.

Sometimes one picture can trigger a thousand memories--especially when the subject is a symbol for a trip filled with happy experiences. An advertising campaign provokes your imagination as it seeks contributions: "Close your eyes and think of England." Symbols flood the brain. I cannot think of England without remembering Big Ben, Stonehenge, London theater and the very first left-hand turn I make after picking up a rental car at Heathrow. But I first remember the red telephone call boxes.

Madonna and Guy Ritchie kept their wedding in a Scottish castle shrouded in secrecy Friday, but some British tabloids reported that they were married in a flower-strewn chapel. Though the buildup to the ceremony in Skibo Castle in the Scottish Highlands had gone on for days, as of early today there had been no official confirmation that vows had been exchanged. Hundreds of reporters who had waited for hours outside the castle in freezing weather gave up their vigil and retreated early today.

Western Opera Theater opened up some traditional cuts in theMad Scene but otherwise offered an undistinctive--as well as undistinguished--production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" Wednesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. Familiar as the touring arm of the San Francisco Opera Center, the company sang James Keller's workmanlike, if often musically maladroit, English translation ("My death bed, my death bed is waiting for me."

Angus Fairhurst, one of the "Young British Artists" who stormed the international art scene in the 1990s, has died. He was 41. Fairhurst's spokeswoman, Erica Bolton, said he committed suicide Saturday during a walk in a remote part of Scotland. She did not specify how he died. Born in 1966 in Penbury in southern England, Fairhurst studied at London's Goldsmiths College in the 1980s, where his contemporaries included Damien Hirst, Gary Hume and Sarah Lucas.

"Aye, me lads and lassies, leave yourre tartans aht hom and bring yourre Western jeans to the Highlahnds." It's a promise. Riding in the Scottish Highlands and islands is the finest way to see the country. The Scottish Trekking and Riding Assn. lists 42 riding centers and explains its terms: "Pony trekking is a type of riding which can be enjoyed by a complete beginner. The highland pony is quiet, sure-footed and a born follower."

An Army reconnaissance plane crashed in Germany on Monday afternoon, hours after two Air Force fighters disappeared and were feared lost over the Scottish Highlands, U.S. military authorities said. An Army pilot and a crew mate were killed as their RC-12 aircraft, on a training mission from Wiesbaden, tumbled into a Bavarian forest about eight miles from Nuremberg. The two Air Force F-15C fighters disappeared during a low-level training flight over rocky northern Scotland.

Mere real estate it definitely is not. Perched on an oak-studded hillside of La Canada Flintridge, a massive stone castle rises like a mirage from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale or a Shakespeare play. With its fanciful turret, imposing stone facade and rolling green lawns, the gray castle bespeaks medieval times, knights, white horses and damsels in distress. Even the castle tower looks like the one where Rapunzel might have let down her hair.

With the arrival of spring will come a number of promotions for travel. Here are a few that strike me as particularly appealing: New Zealand, anyone?: It's only $869 for round-trip air fare, a rental car for six days and a hotel pass for five nights in that terribly respectable, soothing and gentle, visually stunning and British-flavored pastoral land of the South Pacific. The dates are April 13 to June 30, and the price is remarkable for such a distant nation.

Pedaling at a leisurely pace, Ethel Jones and Beryl Murphy gossip while riding side by side down a tree-lined bicycle path. "We can ride together, carry on a conversation and we don't have to worry about cars," Ethel Jones, 70, said during a rest break on the 16-mile Bristol-to-Bath bike path. But it's not an activity the government encourages. Although billions are spent on roads each year, Britain's expanding bikeway network is a private, hand-to-mouth, mostly volunteer initiative.