Vacation Scotland

With the exception of around 60,000 native Gaelic speakers, most Scots are English monoglots: that is they can only speak, read and understand English. All languages impart a ‘view’ of the world, and as a result we see our land and our culture through the medium of the English tongue. Gaels, people who speak Gaelic, [...]

On Sunday 7th of August 1548 the five year old Queen of Scotland was smuggled under cloak of darkness from the realm of her ancestors and shipped across the sea toFrance. The immediate and most dangerous reason for the move was the real threat posed by her uncle, the wife-slaughtering king of England, Henry VIII [...]

From the very start of European settlement in North America, the new arrivals brought their various alcohol making skills with them. The most profitable early colonies were in the Caribbean; where sugar and tobacco were making the merchants back in Glasgow, Liverpool and London very, very rich. One of the key markets for the sugar [...]

The Glenfinnan Viaduct in the west Highlands is an iconic image: a long, curving bridge spanning a deep valley amid a stunning backdrop of mountain and lake. You’ll find it on postcards, calendars, tourist board advertising and in several movies. Perhaps the most famous is in the Harry Potter films, when the train is crossing [...]

For the last 50 years or so the Northern Corries of the Cairngorm Mountains have been a winter playground for skiers and snowboarders alike, with months of deep snow covering the high peaks. In summer however, with only a few secluded snow patches left, these craggy slopes become the preserve of the intrepid few who [...]

The Kingdom of Scotland is really a patchwork of territories: of counties and regions, of Earldoms and Lordships, of Clan lands and great provinces. Each in its own way reflects the diversity of our small country; from the old Scandinavian world of the Northern Isles, to the Gaelic communities of the Hebrides and all the [...]

Many of Scotland’s place names reflect a distant past when evangelical monks wandered the country trying to convert the locals during the so-called Dark Ages. Many of these priests left an indelible mark, and were canonised as Celtic Saints; and one such was St Mael Rubha (who’s name we find in Loch Maree) who preached [...]

The Great North Road, the A9 Highway slices northwards into the Highlands at Dunkeld and then follows the Rivers Tay and Tummel to Pitlochry before reaching a formidable barrier at Killiecrankie. For centuries the narrow gorge and steep mountain slopes looming large above have provide an engineering challenge for any road builder carving a route [...]

The Island of Islay is famed for its whisky; but it is also a very beautiful place with a complicated landscape of rolling, heather-clad hills, broad coastal grasslands and soft sandy beaches. As a result of Islay’s unusually fertile land, the population was always higher and history has often been played out here; indeed, the island [...]

The Trotternish Peninsula in the north of the Isle of Skye is a Tolkienesque world of ridges, pinnacles and plateaux; a staccato terrain that forms a stunningly beautiful landscape. At the north end of the peninsula, as it juts out into the sea facing the broad horizons of the Western Isles beyond, is the Cuithraing, [...]