With soaring mountains, green glens and glassy lochs, the Isle of Skye is world famous for its spectacular scenery. Vivienne Crow reveals how to make a summer break on Skye truly unforgettable
Vivienne Crow is an outdoor writer and guidebook author who specialises in hill-walking, natural history and human heritage. She lives in Cumbria. viviennecrow.co.uk
DISCOVER
Slack-jawed, I stand staring out across the sparkling blue waters of Loch Slapin towards the complex east face of Blà Bheinn. A series of buttresses and scree-filled gullies leads up to a crenelated skyline of spiky rock towers erupting from a rollercoaster ridge. The British Isles don’t get better than this.
That thought has barely taken form in my mind when a huge bird silently drifts into my peripheral vision; it must have flown directly over my head and is now gliding across the water towards the mountain I’m staring at. A golden eagle. It turns and, with two lazy flaps of its wings, begins heading out towards the open sea. It’s several seconds before I realise that I’ve been holding my breath.
The Isle of Skye is like that. Just when you think you have seen the best it can offer, it offers up another surprise.
I had spent the previous few hours wandering among the ruins of Boreraig and Suisnish, cleared of their human inhabitants in the middle of the 19th century to make way for sheep. These villages occupy beautiful and remote locations typical of Skye’s rugged coastline – a coastline that twists and turns and twists some more for about 370 miles, taking in a series of peninsulas divided by slender sea lochs.
Towering above the lochs are some of Britain’s most impressive mountains, including the Cuillin, and some of its most improbable geological features, most notably the weird and wonderful basalt formations on the Trotternish peninsula.
STEP INTO ANCIENT HISTORY
But Scotland’s second-largest island isn’t just about natural wonders – Skye has been inhabited for millennia and humans have been leaving their mark here since prehistoric times. Archaeological sites scattered across the island include burial cairns, souterrains and brochs, or Iron Age roundhouses. More recent history is brought to life in Skye’s many castles, museums and abandoned villages, such as the ones I visited at Boreraig and Suisnish.
The mai
