It’s Skye – Take 2!

It has been less than a year since we last visited the Isle of Skye, but we are glad to be back and holidaying again.

We set off from Edinburgh at 9am, making it about 5 miles before stopping off to pick up breakfast and the obligatory car sweets! Our hotel for tonight is a mere 4.5 hours drive from Edinburgh, so we decided to set off early and make a stop along the way.

The drive to Skye is relatively straight forward, plus there are lots of parking places with spectacular views along the way. One of these is the “Commando Memorial” which is dedicated to the men of the original British Commando Forces raised during World War II. It is situated around a mile from Spean Bridge and overlooks the training areas of the Commando Training Depot established in 1942 at Achnacarry Castle. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop as the parking area was full, but it is definitely worth a look. Image stolen from Google....


Our planned stop of the trip was Eilean Donan Castle, one of the most famous and beautiful castles in Scotland. It is strategically located on its own little island, overlooking the Isle of Skye, at the point where three sea-lochs meet, and it is surrounded by the forested mountains of Kintail.

It was first inhabited around the 6th century, with the first fortified castle being built in the mid-13th century. The castle was then partially destroyed in a Jacobite uprising in 1719 and lay in ruins for the next 200 years. It was not until Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap bought the island in 1911 that work to restore the castle to its former glory began. After 20 years of restoration, the castle reopened in 1932. Unfortunately, the Lieutenant Colonel passed away 6 months before this date and never saw the finished article. The current generations of the Macrae family are still the Constables of Eilean Donan Castle and come visit, and stay, on occasion.

The tour of the castle is self-guided and the route around the inside is marked with arrows. We spent a good 45 minutes wandering around before enjoying a latte and a scone in the castle cafe. We also watched the last of the grand prix qualifying before carrying on our journey to Skye.

 Thankfully, it was only a 40 minute drive to our hotel in Sleat so we arrived at the Toravaig House Hotel pretty promptly, meaning we could enjoy one or two drinks before dinner!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary Holiday

Image
Every year, around December 8th, I look to see what we can do or where we can go to celebrate "surviving" another year of marriage.   Over the last few years, we've been back to our wedding venue for an overnight stay, had an all-inclusive holiday in Ras al Khaimah in the UAE, visited New Orleans and had a Michelin tasting menu at The Kitchin in Leith. This year, we decided to stick with Europe and head to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Back in April 2020, we were supposed to visit Riga, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid. I'm not sure why its taken us so long for us to rebook, but the prospect of a traditional Christmas market and some Glühwein convinced us. We flew Ryanair from Edinburgh to Riga on Sunday 3rd December; the flight was 2 hours late, but thankfully we had paid for a lounge so we weren't too bothered. I had pre-booked a taxi on arrival and was delighted given the delay; the journey was only 15 minutes, but it was midnight and -10 when we arrived ...
Read more

Bucharest & Dracula

Image
This is another one of these holidays that we had booked in 2020, for my birthday to be precise. It's only now, April 2024, that we managed to rebook and make our way to the Capital, Bucharest and the mountains and countryside of Transylvania. It was the usual deal, British Airways via London using a companion voucher and Avios to upgrade to business class; I'm pretty sure the flights cost us £2. The flight to London was early, and it was absolutely beautiful coming into London; we had fabulous views of the city.  We arrived in Romania late afternoon, and had a taxi waiting to take us to the hotel. I had booked The Mansion Boutique Hotel, a 4 star hotel in the centre of the pedestrian district; we had to be let off by the side of the cobbled streets but thankfully it was only a 2 minute walk. Check-in was great, we got a glass of fizz each and taken to our room which was called "Zen". We actually didn't have too long, so unpacked quickly and made our way out of th...
Read more

Hrvatska (Croatia`s real name!)

Image
This is our second holiday of the year together, and we are starting out in the capital of Croatia, Zagreb. There are no direct flights from Edinburgh, so we decided to fly BA via London. Thankfully, we didn’t have to get up at the crack of dawn so we enjoyed a longer lie before setting off for the airport. It didn’t take long to settle into the lounge, both in Edinburgh and on our arrival in London, although we did need to navigate our way to Terminal 3 rather than the home of BA, terminal 5. We were slightly delayed out of London as the baggage handlers managed to “bump” the plane, this meant a wait for some engineers to make sure we could take off! An hour later we were on our way, albeit a bit cranky but i did enjoy a Champagne afternoon tea on the journey over. After waiting in a reasonably long queue at passport control we made it to our taxi pick up location and within 15 minutes, we were checking into the Hotel Dubrovnik (in Zagreb!). This is very confusing, and I did have to c...
Read more