The Wonders of Scotland

[Elgarian Redux]

Just to get the ball rolling, here's Ardvreck Castle, on Loch Assynt.
(No gold was found)

[Elgarian Redux]

The shore of Loch Broom:

[steve ridgway]

Very scenic . I've been on a few good holidays in Scotland years ago but then we discovered so much within an hour of where we live that we stopped going further.

[LKB]

Very evocative images, thank you.

I wonder if I'll ever return to the UK... 

[Luke]

I'll put some up from my visits later, when I get home. Scotland is addictive.

[vandermolen]

Great photos!
I'd love to have a holiday in Scotland. I've only ever just been over the border.

[Luke]

I'll put some up from my visits later, when I get home. Scotland is addictive.

Just one for now, because I can't resist. Panorama of Red and Black Cuillin, Skye, taken back in 2016. The Black Cuillin, to the right, look a little smaller here, but actually are much bigger and more dramatic. They  curve away in a ferocious, jagged ridge behind the one you can see here, Sgurr nan Gillean. The beautifully symmetrical Red Cuillin on the left is Glamaig. Blaven and Marsco also visible.

[Elgarian Redux]

Just one for now, because I can't resist. Panorama of Red and Black Cuillin, Skye, taken back in 2016. The Black Cuillin, to the right, look a little smaller here, but actually are much bigger and more dramatic. They  curve away in a ferocious, jagged ridge behind the one you can see here, Sgurr nan Gillean. The beautifully symmetrical Red Cuillin on the left is Glamaig. Blaven and Marsco also visible.

Stupendous!

[Elgarian Redux]

It's like picking the plums out of plum pudding. Here's Suilven.

[Luke]

My favourite. Stunning from every angle (it's the one I posted on the Elgar thread last night)

[Luke]

This is Suilven as seen from the sea i.e. the other direction. It looks much much bigger than it really is, a massive bulk over Lochinver even though it's a few miles away. This is the view the Vikings would have had of it, which explains why they gave it the name they did, Suilven meaning Pillar Mountain.

[Karl Henning]

Beautiful views!

[Elgarian Redux]

This is Suilven as seen from the sea i.e. the other direction. It looks much much bigger than it really is, a massive bulk over Lochinver even though it's a few miles away. This is the view the Vikings would have had of it, which explains why they gave it the name they did, Suilven meaning Pillar Mountain.

Blisteringly fine! Yes, it dominates the surroundings in every direction, and is the star of every photograph.

[Elgarian Redux]

One of my favourite Scottish books is The Highland Jaunt, by Paul Johnson and George Gale (Collins, 1973). George Gale writes:

"Ullapool became, in retrospect, something else: for it was the beginning of a piece of road and land which were to us swiftly to become, as they already were to those who had known them with far more knowledge than ever I could, the finest roads and lands, the finest mountains, lochs and seas and skies that are to be found anywhere within the British Isles; or indeed, anywhere in the world. ...

I have not found anywhere on earth more beautiful than the western lands to the north of Ullapool, nor do I expect to find anywhere more beautiful, or hope to."

The remarkable thing is that he isn't exaggerating.

[Luke]

No, he's not. It's beautiful in many ways, not just the visual. There's also a melancholy quality, a hardness, a thinness, an elemental essence. Arvo Pärt's setting of Burns' My Hearts in the Highlands, as pure as cold spring water, captures something of it, I think. This video, accompanying Pärt's music, is astonishingly beautiful

The video is not of the far Scottish north that Elgarian Redux describes, however; it's of the Cairngorms , where most of Britain's highest mountains are, barring Ben Nevis, the highest of all. But Ben MacDui, #2, isn't that far behind.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Great thread! I would like to visit northern Scottland and eat fried fish. Any nice Haddock or cod? Good river fish as well?

[Luke]

I'm not a seafood person but Scottish seafood is supposed to be wonderful

https://haarathome.co.uk/blogs/news/scottish-seafood

[Elgarian Redux]

Great thread! I would like to visit northern Scottland and eat fried fish. Any nice Haddock or cod? Good river fish as well?

The Seaforth restaurant in Ullapool is a good place to go. Excellent haddock/cod and chips is available (but don't neglect the haggis), as I recall, eaten in a slightly rough, Scandinavian atmosphere that seems appropriate to a place close to the Northern Edge of The World.

[Elgarian Redux]

No, he's not. It's beautiful in many ways, not just the visual. There's also a melancholy quality, a hardness, a thinness, an elemental essence.

Elemental indeed. There's a road out of Lochinver that winds its way northward to Drumbeg and beyond, which is narrow, steep, and very twisty. The first time I ever drove along it we reached a point where I was so scared that I simply had to stop and take stock of what we were attempting. Ahead of us, for as far as we could see, ranged mountain after mountain, bare rock, unrelieved by trees, greenery of any kind, and with no visible trace of man. Primeval stuff (these rocks are the oldest in Britain).

I've since driven along that road several times and in fact it's perfectly alright. But that first time was terrifying.

[Elgarian Redux]

Oddly enough, despite the prevalence of mountains, it's great country to visit with a bike.