Wee Trip to Scotland — Part 3

Over the sea to Skye

To Vis­it Skye we booked a 1 Day Tour with scot­tish Tours.
Our tour starts with a dri­ve along the full length of Loch Ness. Tour through dra­mat­ic Glen Shiel to see the “Five Sis­ters” moun­tain range before tak­ing time out to vis­it beau­ti­ful Eilean Donan Cas­tle. Cross “over the sea to Skye” to enjoy spec­tac­u­lar views of the Cuillin Hills and to vis­it Portree, the main town on the island. Return to the main­land and tour through dra­mat­ic Glen Car­ron before return­ing to Inver­ness by Achnasheen and the Black Isle.Our guide had all sorts of infor­ma­tion about the his­to­ry, flo­ra and fau­na, the spawn of the salmon and the tra­di­tions of whiskey for us. At the end of the tour we even heard great music The Cor­ries and Clanado­nia. With this music in the ear and the coun­try­side we passed I was close to tears (again, i know), because it was just per­fect. Thanks Ian for this won­der­ful day!

Pho­tos from Eilean Donan Cas­tle, Loch Ness and the Inver­moris­ton Falls can be found in Part 1 

Stage 6

We fol­lowed the A87 til Portree with some very nice Spots

The Skye Bridge (Gael­ic: Drochaid an Eilein Sgitheanaich) is a road bridge over Loch Alsh, con­nect­ing the Isle of Skye to the island of Eilean Bàn. The name is also used for the whole Skye Cross­ing, which fur­ther con­nects Eilean Bàn to the main­land across the Car­rich Viaduct.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the usu­al route from the main­land to Skye was the short­est cross­ing, with a length of around 500 metres (1,640 ft), across the sound between the vil­lages of Kyle of Lochalsh on the main­land and Kyleakin on the island’s east coast. A fer­ry ser­vice oper­at­ed from around 1600, run by pri­vate oper­a­tors and lat­ter­ly by Cale­don­ian MacBrayne.

Pho­tos from Kyleakin with View of Eilean Bàn

Stage 7

Sli­gachan (Gael­ic: Sligeachan) is a small set­tle­ment on Skye. It is close to the Cuillin moun­tains and pro­vides a good view­point for see­ing the Black Cuillin mountains.

We were run­ning late and unfor­tu­nate­ly there­fore had no time to vis­it the Sli­gachan Bridge and also the views of Loch Sli­gachan had to be done from the bus. But the weath­er was great and the view of the Cuillin from here fantastic.

The Sli­gachan Hotel in the Heart of The Cuillin

Stage 8

We only had about 30 min­utes in Portree. The place is crowd­ed with tourists and it was hard­ly pos­si­ble to get an unob­struct­ed view to the har­bor with its pic­turesque col­or­ful hous­es. There­fore, I have only tak­en pic­tures of the bay and a few from the busy cen­ter. And i enjoyed a great Cof­fee at the Gra­nary Cof­feeshop.

Portree (Scot­tish Gael­ic: Port Rìgh) is the largest town on Skye. It is the loca­tion for the only sec­ondary school on the Island, Portree High school. Portree has a har­bour with a pier designed by Thomas Telford. Attrac­tions in the town include the Àros cen­tre which cel­e­brates the island’s Gael­ic her­itage. The Roy­al Hotel is the site of Mac­N­ab’s Inn, the last meet­ing place of Flo­ra Mac­Don­ald and Bon­nie Prince Char­lie in 1746. The town plays host to the Isle of Skye’s shin­ty club, Skye Camanachd. Around 939 peo­ple (37.72% of the pop­u­la­tion) can speak Scot­tish Gaelic.(Source Wikipedia)

A lion tops the Mer­cat (or Mar­ket) Cross, which dou­bles as a war memo­r­i­al, in down­town Portree

Stage 9

on the way back to Inver­ness we stopped at var­i­ous points, but nev­er for very long. I would have liked a longer stay espe­cial­ly in Broad­ford and Break­ish, because good pho­tos sim­ply need time.

Broad­ford Bay is a mag­i­cal Place. I could sit there for hours watch­ing just to the water and feel­ing the wind in my Hair.

on the A87 through Breakish

Last View from the Skye Bridge