"Damn Scots... They ruined Scotland!"

Despite Groundskeeper Willie's declaration which serves as the title of this post (full clip here), Leah and I have decided to head to Scotland for our next vacation in just over a month. It's been almost two years since we visited Germany, so I figure we're due. Anyway, I mention this because we're just starting to work on our itinerary and any advice is greatly appreciated. Specifically we're trying to answer two main questions:

1. Should we travel by rail or rent a car? I'm a big fan of trains, but my research suggests it'll actually be cheaper to rent a car (even factoring in the cost of gas, er, um, petrol). Plus I'm guessing some of the breweries we'll want to visit are somewhat off the beaten path, so having a car would come in handy.

2. Where should we go? We're flying in and out of Edinburgh, so that's destination #1. Other places I'd like to go include Inverness, Orkney and Kyle of Lochalsh (and to a lesser degree Aberdeen and Glasgow). I'm particularly intrigued by Orkney both because one of my favorite Scottish beers (Skull Splitter) is brewed there and because it looks awesome (that's a picture of Orkney above) but it's quite out of the way from anything else and given that we'll only be there for seven days, I'm thinking we may have to put it off until we return some time in the future.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention this in case anybody has any suggestions/recommendations. And of course, just as we did with our Germany trip, we'll be posting a recap right here. Slaandjivaa!