The Isle of Skye

Towards the end of August 2004 Troll and I had our yearly travel holiday. This time we decided to visit Scotland's Isle of Skye and South-West France.

The first part of our holiday was a week in Skye. This time we travelled with some of our french friends. We all met up at the Beauvais airport bright and early (not that we had a choice since we were flying Ryanair ( it's either bright and early or dark and late) and after about one and a half hours of boredom, landed in Scotland just before midday. We then collected the rental car from the airport and were on our merry way.

The way from the airport to the Isle of Skye (about 7 hours with stops) took us though Glasgow where we inadvertently gave our friends a 'tour of glasgow' (hey it's been 2 years since I was last there!) before finally finding street names that I recognized. Glasgow is cursed with a multitude a one way streets - poor Troll!

We stopped and had lunch at Loch Lomond and then continued following the A82. We stopped again just before Rannoch Moor for a coffee and to saw everyone the bagpipe player in the middle of nowhere. At Fort William we took a slight detour to see the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

This is Glenfinnan Viaduct. Have the feeling that you've seen it before somewhere? Well you have if you've seen Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This is the famous bridge that the Hogwarts Express (in reality the Jacobite) crosses when Harry's dangling out of the car.

Retracing our steps we continued and took another longer detour, this time to Urquhart castle on the Loch Ness. The castle was closed but as least some of the wish to see the Loch Ness was fullfilled. By now we were getting a bit tired and so continued straight on Skye (about 2 hours or so) and arrived at our rental cottage in the twilight.

We were pleasantly surprised during our week on the island as it only rainned once or twice and the forecast had been for rain until the day we left. The Isle of Skye isn't nicknamed the 'Misty Isle' for no reason! The roads however are like many roads in Scotland, narrow one lane things with passing places and insane locals. Troll and I are more or less used to these, or least knew to expect them, the others, well they just about leapt out of the car each time we stopped.

The only really negative point about our stay were the midges! Ferocious little things! And the repellant didn't seem to make a difference, we still all had bite marks up to a week later. On the positive side they don't ich that much, this was good since by the end of the holiday we all looked like we had chickenpox!

The cottage is rented out per week by a friendly lady by the name of Anna. It was very nice inside, a large kitchen and table, bathroom, lounge room and two bedrooms. So this was our base, in the 'town' (meant rather loosely here) of Fiskavaig. A lovely, quiet area close to being in the middle of nowhere and with the Talisker Whisky distillery conveniently located a short drive down the road.

We passed by this bridge and the town of Sligachan many times, it's a sort of gateway to the north and south. Once the sky was purple but it appears lighter in the photo for some reason.

As there are quite a few photos and a fair bit of text, these pages have divided into the island's geographical quarters.