the most beautiful place in the world – how scotland captured my heart

If you have been reading here for a time you know that two years ago I travelled to Scotland (see the old blog post here).

I fell in love with the country back then and have been longing to go back. With a few days off at the start of the month J and I decided to take a short trip to the Isle of Skye, a place we hadn’t managed to fit into our schedule two years ago. The flight to Glasgow was over in a wink but the drive up into the highlands took several hours, plenty of time for J to practice driving on the left side of the road, for me to gasp at the countryside and for us both to make some scenic detours…We visited Kilchurn Castle and drove along beautiful Glen Etive, stopped for a bite to eat at the fantastic Ben Nevis Inn (what a lovely place!) and arrived on Skye rather late and tired.

After indulging in a hearty breakfast the next morning including porridge, homemade banana bread and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon (so good!) we set out for some serious walking. First stop was the “Old Man of Storr”, an absolutely stunning landscape.

I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Screaming, really 🙂

Ever since we got out of Glasgow we had found ourselves in breathtakingly beautiful surroundings and every corner we turned provided us with more unbelievable views. Walking in this landscape is simply a dream.

A pretty demanding one I’ll admit. I haven’t been able to do any sports in the past year (save some hikes in Canada) and am sadly out of shape.

The Quiraing was next.What I love about walking in Scotland is that there are sheep and cattle everywhere looking curiously at you panting past.

On our second day on Skye we visited Skyeskyns, a wonderful local sheepskin workshop that offers informative tours on their handmade processing of sheepskins.

I just had to do some yarn shopping too of course and picked up a few skeins at the Shilasdair shop. They have a little exhibition on dyeing with local plants which was very interesting.

We saw the ruins of two Iron Age brochs, Dun Fiadhairt and Dun Beag, impressive structures slowly crumbling among the grass and blooming heather.

We had left what would turn out to be my personal highlight for last – a walk to the Fairy Pools near Glenbrittle. Situated at the foot of the Cuillin mountain range this landscape just takes your breath away. Oh, and the wind did too. It was so windy that day that I was actually, physically blown over once. Good thing we had decided earlier to skip a walk near high cliffs that day *mustnotkillmyselfwhileonholiday*.

We said goodbye to Skye all to soon and with a heavy heart. One last warm breakfast at lovely Blairdhu House and then it was off again on the road.

Bye teddybear cattle!

We had decided to do a completely touristy thing on the way and visit a distillery. We took a tour at the Edradour distillery which turned out to be so much fun! The smallest distillery in Scotland, they produce only small quantities of whisky, a lot of the process still by hand involving century old machinery.  We also got to taste the whisky and a whisky cream mix (like Baileys but so much better). I had never thought about how whisky is really made and found it fascinating.

My only regret in this holiday: we could easily have stayed three times as long and it would still have been too short. In Scotland I have found the country I want to return to again and again, savoring the landscape, the people, the language.

Highlands, I’ll be back. For sure.

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