This trip was my absolute favorite so far, The Isle of Skye was beyond beautiful! Let's start from the beginning of our two day trip to one of the most spectacular sites in the world! Buckle in, this is gonna be a lengthy post.
Day 1
We started our journey by first stopping at a very famous loch called Loch Lomond in Luss, a village on the west bank of the loch. Just as a reminder to everyone, lakes are called Loch's in Scotland, you don't wanna be caught calling it a lake near the locals! Loch Lomond is a fresh water loch that crosses the Highland Boundary Fault (the fault that separates the lowlands and highlands). It is the largest inland stretch of water in the UK by surface area. It's also the muse for the famous song, "Bonnie Bonnie banks of Loch Lomond", which is a sad little song about a soldier dying in the war and returning to the loch in spirit. I recommend you give it a listen by plopping it's name into youtube. It was dreary and rainy on our way there, but it cleared up just in time for our arrival!
We continued our route through Glencoe, a gorgeous place we passed through on our way to Loch Ness several weeks before. As before, we got to see "The Three Sisters", which are the three mountains sitting along the River Coe. The name Glencoe is said to mean "The Glen of Weeping", perhaps because of the many waterfalls that slide their way down the mountain sides, or perhaps because of the Massacre of Glencoe. I was actually quite happy to visit again, as it's just so darn pretty. We also stopped briefly at the Commando Memorial once in the highlands. This monument to the men of the British Commando Forces was raised during World War II to honor the men lost in war.
A little further down the road we stopped to see Loch Garry, albeit from far away, but still a beautiful spot. Along the road to the highlands you'll spot many stops that have rocks piled on top of each other. This goes into another great Scottish tale. Soldiers going off to war would place a stone on top of a pile of rocks when they left to battle in the hopes of taking their rock off the pile when they arrived safely home. As you can imagine, many never returned to take their stone off. Nowadays, it's said that if you place a stone on the pile and make a wish, your wish will come true!
We made another quick stop 30 or so minutes later to climb a mossy hill to get a great view of another highland passage before stopping at the famous Eilean Donan castle, which happens to be the most photographed castle in all of Scotland. It's situated on an island at the point where three great sea lochs meet (Loch Alsh, Loch Long, and Loch Duich). It was built in the mid 13th century, but partially destroyed in the Jacobite Uprising in 1719. The castle laid in ruins for the better part of 200 years until Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap bought the island in 1911 and proceeded to restore the castle to its former glory and it was finally reopened in 1932. It's one of those castle's you imagine came from a fairy tale!
Now we're so close to Isle of Skye, It's only another 30 or so minutes of travel to reach it. We crossed the Skye Bridge and entered the town we'd be staying in for the night, Broadford, which was breathtaking, to say the least. We settled in at a little hostel (the first time I've ever stayed at a legit hostel) and had the whole afternoon of free time to walk around, explore, and have some dinner. Broadford is a very small little village, so we walked up and down it's streets several times before deciding to have dinner at a hotel that overlooked the bay. I'm sure you'll see by the pictures how beautiful the bay was.
Day 2
We said goodbye to our little hostel and hopped on the coach headed for the Old Man of Storr, Mealt Falls, Lealt Gorge, and Portree, the capital of the Isle of Skye. Before we reached it, though, we stopped at the Sligachan Bridge, which has quite a funky myth to go with it. Apparently, if you dunk your face into the river for 7 seconds, you will gain eternal beauty. It was a very dreary and rainy day, so I decided to forego eternal beauty to stay warm and dry and instead watch as others dunked their faces in the river (several of them accidentally fell in soaking their whole torso, which was pretty funny). I didn't get a good picture of the bridge or someone dunking their face, so I found one on google so you can see what it looked like (the pic on the far right Ash took of Aaron and I, and the other of the river is the only one I took)!
We then continued to the Old Man of Storr, which was quite a difficult hike to the top of a mountain (a mountain, people...an actual mountain). It was worth it, though, as the views from the top were breathtaking and overlooked the coast of the Isle of Skye. Old Man of Storr is also a very popular filming destination, appearing in movies like Transformers and the new Harry Styles music video.
After we made our way back down the mountain, we headed for Mealt Falls, which is fed by Loch Mealt, and sometimes referred to as the "Bride Veil" as it resembles one. Our last stop before entering Portree was Lealt Gorge, considered the most specatular gorge in all of Isle of Skye. You can see the ruins of a factory on the beach below which used to process diatomite mined from Loch Cuithir. Finally, we made it to Portree for lunch. We had some super authentic fish and chips (that didn't agree with Ashlee or Aaron), that wasn't too bad. We wandered around the small capital for a few hours and then loaded back on the bus for a straight shot back home to Glasgow!
There were some spectacular sunset pics from our drive home, too!
All in all, it was my favorite trip so far! Can't wait to go on many more.