From his surfer-themed Boardwalk Beach Club cafe on Edinburgh's Cramond foreshore, owner Eddie Tait can see Fife on a good day. On spectacular summer days such as Scotland has enjoyed a run of this week, he imagines he can see even further - to one of those far-away, sun-kissed spots we dream about for large parts of the year but which only actually come into view after four hours on a budget airline and a last call to the neighbours to make sure they feed the cat.

“Today has been nuts, it looks like Greece out there,” he laughs. “We've had customers from all over because of the English Bank Holiday. At the moment it looks amazing. Stunning. We've been selling a lot of Luca's ice-cream, stacks and stacks of four litre tubs, and there's been about 30 kite-surfers out too because of the north-east wind. So in terms of the spectacle outside the cafe it's been brilliant.”

In fact the long Promenade which runs along the shore at Cramond resembles Sydney's Bondi Beach or Los Angeles's Venice Beach as much as it does a Greek island thanks to an army of roller-bladers, cyclists, jogger and horse-riders. Even the local boxing club has taken to sparring on the sand.

“They've all been out recently and we've had all the usual sailors too,” says Tait. “Everyone's got a happy face. The kids are coming out of school and coming down with their parents and their grand-parents. The Promenade here particularly is a brilliant setting when it's nice and there's more people using it now than probably at any time before.”

One of them is Debbie Smith, pumping iron on an outdoor multi-gym with her four-year-old daughter Imogen. She lives nearby and is a regular visitor to the Promenade, though it's rare to be enjoying it in weather like this.

“I think it's just great being able to get the kids out, getting them to be active and making sure they make the most of it,” she says. “I think you do more as a family as well, rather than being inside at soft play, say. We're a member of a gym and it's so nice to be able to use their outdoor pool as well.”

Scots don't really know what to do when the sun comes out, she thinks, other than try a bit of gardening and maybe have a barbecue. But if the weather was more consistently hot, it would make a huge difference.

“I just think we'd be outdoors all the time. We'd be going camping with the kids and things like that. But nobody can plan anything because the weather's usually so unpredictable. We've had a few weekends planned for camping with friends but we've had to cancel them at the last minute because the weather's been so rubbish.”

If you've just returned home from somewhere far away and sun-kissed, here's what you've missed: a week of glorious weather which has brought Scotland out to play and offered us a glimpse of what that much-vaunted Mediterranean lifestyle looks like over the top of a can of Irn Bru. The mercury has hit 23C across swathes of Scotland's western areas, with temperatures not far behind on the east, and it looks set to stay that way for what's left of the weekend.

Taking to social media to celebrate the event - or perhaps just to provide documentary proof that Scotland can do fantastic weather - thousands have posted images of themselves enjoying white beaches in John O'Groats (#blueskies #norain #cantbelieveit), sunbathing in Dumfries and Galloway (#legsout #powfoot) or standing atop Skye's Trotternish ridge after a second ascent of the day, the sea stretched out in front, the mainland behind and a canopy of blue overhead (#troopers #quiraing).

Glasgow's Botanic Gardens has been a particularly popular spot, with thousands of visitors daily.

“We've been very busy since last weekend,” says General Manager Ewen Donaldson. “They all pour into the gardens and the parks as well. There are thousands of people taking advantage of the open spaces, which is great.

“People are just sitting in the sun and relaxing, sitting on the grass and enjoying walking through. The glasshouses tend to be quieter as a result and it's very, very hot inside for the staff. There's a big cactus show in the Kibble Palace this weekend and while it's good for the cacti it's not so good for the visitors.”

In contrast, London and parts of southern England were battered by heavy rain and plagued by low temperatures last week while in France there is serious flooding, with the Seine in particular causing concern for residents of Paris - so much so that the Louvre museum was shut on Friday to allow staff to move precious artworks to higher floors in the building.

No such problems in central Edinburgh. Teenagers mooch past in shorts, vests and flip-flops while men in suits and sunglasses sip espressos at outdoor cafes and pretend they're in Milan or Madrid. And for once the students and hipsters in head-to-toe black look uncomfortably hot rather than insufferably cool.

Near the top of the Grassmarket, the centralised pedestrian area has been colonised by fenced off areas filled with tables and chairs. Waitresses from the nearby pubs scurry to and fro with drinks and plates of food. There is barely a seat to be had as locals and tourists alike sit and watch the world go on its way.

Squint and you could be in some central European capital in high summer. Or, if you overlook the absence of a massive Baroque fountain topped by an Egyptian obelisk, Rome's famous Piazza Navona. The pubs, by comparison, are near-empty, their warm and dingy interiors appealing enough on a dreich day but hardly consistent with street-based cafe culture.

A short walk away on the Meadows, the grass is littered with groups of sunbathers. A woman lies flat out with her bike by her side. A dad kicks a football with his toddler son. And, half-obscured behind the smoke billowing off a disposable barbecue, Jade Holliman and Mark Davison are tucking into a bottle of white wine.

“I've never seen the sun before,” jokes Davison, a PhD student at Edinburgh University. He's from Durham, so that might be true. But when he admits that he used to live near Los Angeles, it's clear he has some experience of endless sunny days and eternally blue skies.

“It's about mood,” he says. “I think you feel guilty if you're in a bad mood when it's nice weather every day. Even here when it's like this, you can't be in a bad mood.”

And so he isn't. But neither is he sitting at his desk working on his dissertation. “I should be doing that right now. But this is an excuse to get out.”

“Everyone seems a lot happier,” adds Holliman. “It's nice to see people around each other rather than on their own. But there's not enough beer gardens.”

A few hundred metres away, three members of Edinburgh University's Ultimate Frisbee team are taking the opportunity to practice their skills in conditions which don't resemble a wind tunnel set to “Baltic”.

Peter Dennis is one of them, and he's another with experience of Californian sunshine. He's just finished a physics degree at the University of Edinburgh but studied for a year at the University of California, where he acquired his love of all things frisbee.

“It's like this pretty much every day in southern California and with a disc-based sport like this, any rain and any wind makes it a hundred times more difficult. So over the winter months when we're playing it can be really tricky and makes the sport a lot harder. But when you get a day like this, it's so much easier and so much more fun to play. It's so much fun to be outside when it's a nice day.”

So the weather lets the frisbee fly true. But what does the sunshine do for that other thing that sometimes needs to soar - the spirit? “Lifts it to the skies,” says Dennis.

The sun's out, Scotland has its top off – and no matter what that looks like, it certainly feels great.