Falkirk Wheel

The Falkirk Wheel is the world's only rotating boat lift, reconnecting the Forth & Clyde Canal with the Union Canal 35 metres above. It opened in 2002 to replace a flight of eleven locks that had been demolished in the 1930s, and it moves boats between the two canal levels using counterbalanced gondolas that draw very little energy.

Two boat-carrying gondolas sit at opposite ends of a rotating arm. As one descends the other rises, and because each gondola always holds the same volume of water (a floating boat displaces its own weight, by Archimedes' principle), the whole thing stays almost perfectly balanced. A full rotation takes about four minutes and uses just 1.5 kWh of electricity, roughly the same as boiling eight kettles.

You can, and it's one of the best ways to see it. Trips leave from the visitor centre and take about 50 minutes, carrying you up through the wheel and along a short aqueduct above before returning the same way. The visitor centre also has interactive exhibits on the engineering and a water play area that families enjoy.

The Kelpies are close by. Andy Scott's 30-metre steel horse-head sculptures stand about 6 miles north-east at Helix Park in Grangemouth. Both sit on the Forth & Clyde Canal corridor, and Hopscotch day tours can take in the two on one itinerary.