TRAVEL NEWS

Go stargazing in Scotland (or closer home, Oman).

When was the last time you looked at the sky and saw the twinkling of stars instead of blinking lights from skyscrapers, airplanes and billboards?

In Scotland’s Galloway Forest Park, nights are the darkest they will ever be – it is, after all, Europe’s only Dark Sky Park. Come nightfall, skies in this 300-hectare forest turn to an inky blank canvas peppered with over 7,000 stars. The Scottish Dark Sky observatory organises stargazing events at the park all year long at about Dh30 per person for a 90-minute session. For details on cosy B&B and inns you can stay in during your trip, visit gallowayforestpark.com.

Closer home you can reach for the stars with Oman’s Alila Jabal Akhdar hotel’s free stargazing tours. Led by astrophysicist Dr Nathaniel Butterworth it includes daytime viewing from the sun deck through a solar telescope and night-sky telescope tours that teach you how to set up a telescope and photograph the skies; 00968 2534 4200.