If you look through the UK World in Pictures category on this blog, you will find quite a few “glimpses”, “impressions”, and even dedicated sets of Scottish sights and locales that caught my eye in between whisky tastings on various trips to the country. The itineraries may be structured around visiting distilleries, but I always include other points of interest and take time to stop at various viewpoints along the route. Scotland is such a gorgeous country that there are many of those, no matter which direction you go.
The relatively short timeframe of the most recent trip and the distances that we needed to cover in four days reduced my photographic output entirely to the “drive-by” variety. Our main distillery targets were all located on the southwestern edges of the Highlands and in Argyll and Bute. Here is a small selection of perspectives that we came across.
Glen Ogle Viaduct, built in the second half of the 19th century.
The mountain peaks known as the Three Sisters of Glencoe.
You’ll have to trust me that there is a third one to the left of this perspective.
Unnamed ruins near Killundine on Morvern Peninsula.
Ardtornish Castle and Lighthouse in another part of Morvern.
The most colorful waterfront of Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull.
Abandoned boats in Salen Bay.
Duart Castle, guarding the passage of the Sound of Mull.
Coastal perspective in Oban Bay.
Campbeltown Marina.
Notice the skies. It is a good illustration of the crazy weather that accompanied our visit to the Kintyre Peninsula, alternating bright sunlight and hail throughout the day.
Campbeltown was the only occasion of this trip that we stayed overnight in town. It will not win any awards for prettiness, but I still went out to the pier in the morning to snap a few perspectives of the waterfront and surroundings.
The coastline at Westport Beach, a few minutes out of Campbeltown.
Our only dedicated “culture” stop on this trip was the Neolithic monuments area in Ballymeanoch, which includes standing stones, a stone circle, and a cairn.
The last-day itinerary switch described in the previous post meant that we drove through Inveraray on Loch Fyne. Its castle would be on my target list if it were not customarily closed through March for the winter season. You cannot get good perspectives of the castle from the nearby roads, but the town itself turned out to be quite fetching.
There is also a local attraction called Inveraray Jail, offering tours of the premises and an escape room themed after the establishment. We did not proceed beyond the gift shop, though.
And that’s all there was. The next morning, I flew to Iceland.