On Friday my cousin Paulina came up to visit me in Scotland, since she’s doing her semester abroad in Spain. We’re going to be traveling a lot in the next week, but our first excursion was to Skye for a long weekend.
The first stop was Loch Lomond. The first thing you need to know about Loch Lomond is the song (click here to listen). I seriously had that song stuck in my head while we were there and for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, this was one of the stops where we didn’t have such great weather. Still I think the Loch has a certain mystery to it when it’s misty.
Our next stop was just a quick stop to take some pictures. I have no idea where this is, but our guide did say that just a few miles from there are the stones where they filmed Outlander, which I thought was pretty awesome. Regardless, this was a pretty stunning view.
We even got a pretty great rainbow!
The next stop was one I was seriously excited for – GLENCOE! This was one of my favorite places in the Highlands, if not my favorite, and it still is. Although I am a Campbell and it can get a little awkward, especially when the guide is a MacDonald, I think this place is absolutely stunning.
I was really excited when we stopped here, because this is where my mom and I stopped when we came here in September!
At one point our driver said “shit” under his breath and immediately pulled the bus over, and then got out and walked off with no explanation. We were all really confused and we waited and waited. When he came back, he had a loaf of bread and a bottle of whisky and he told Paulina and I to hold them. He offered no explanation, so we just went with it.
A little while later, we stopped and he pointed out some deer. It turns out the bread had a purpose – we were going to feed the deer. It was quite fun. I think the whisky was just a personal purchase, though.
After that, we stopped at this overlook, where the loch kind of looked like Scotland! Can you see it?
We also stopped to use the toilets at this inn in the middle of nowhere, and it had a pretty stunning view.
We also made a toilet stop just past Eilean Donan Castle, where we would go on the way back to Edinburgh.
That night, we made it into Portree at about 7. Paulina and I made a beeline for the grocery store and then proceeded to eat dinner, shower, and go to bed. We knew we were getting up early the next morning, so we tried to get as much sleep as possible.
The next morning we left before 9am to go to the very northern tip of the island.
It was surprisingly clear, but don’t be fooled. It was quite chilly.
This was also the location of Duntulum Castle. It’s just ruins and you can’t go up there, but it does have quite a view looking out on the Inner Hebrides.
Just down the road is a cemetery, where Flora MacDonald is buried. She is famous for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie flee after Culloden.
Our next stop was the Fairy Glen. The picture below is from on top of a hill looking onto the “Fairy Castle.”
In the glen there were these circles made of stones. Apparently, to ward off fairies, you have to walk backwards around the spiral and leave a coin the center.
We made another stop where there are normally seals, and there were some there. In the picture below, you can just make out some seals popping their heads out to see why so many people were standing on the coast.
This was the view from just a bit higher at that same stop.
One of my favorite stops we made was Neist Point.
We were told to climb that hill and to check out the lighthouse behind it.
There were some pretty cool cliffs.
We climbed that! I don’t think this picture shows how high that is.
And the lighthouse looked like something out of a Wes Anderson film.
Next we headed to the Fairy Pools! This was seriously cool. The water was so clear and the mountains surrounding it were so beautiful and covered in snow.
After this, we went to a pub and warmed up, then we headed back to Portree, where we had another early night. We took advantage of the great kitchen this time and made ourselves real food. We also had a nice chat with the girls we were sharing a room with for about an hour. We then showered and headed to bed for an even earlier start the next morning.
Our first stop was Sligachan Old Bridge. I was really interested to learn that there is an annual race up the mountain to the left in the picture below. What a bunch of crazies. Though, they’re not that crazy if they do it for the view!
We got to Eilean Donan Castle just as they opened to get a tour. I wish we had had longer there, because there were lots of artifacts and there were guides in several of the rooms to give little talks, but we couldn’t really spend that long there.
After going inside (unfortunately, no photography inside), we got this crazy view of the castle as we were leaving.
Next, we stopped at Loch Ness at Fort Augustus. We were really just there for lunch, but Paulina and I ate quickly and then had time to explore a bit.
Our second-to-last stop was just a random waterfall in the Cairngorms National Forest somewhere.
After that, we went to Pitlochry, but I didn’t take any pictures there. Paulina and I ate ice cream and went into the camping store and then we had to head back to Edinburgh.
I normally don’t do group tours like this, but I think it was a really time efficient way of seeing all those great things. It would have taken a lot of planning to see even half of those things on our own, so I think it was worth putting up with hours on the bus and the interesting people in our group.
