THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS

Once considered wild and remote, the Scottish Highlands are now valued by today's visitors for their majestic landscapes and their solitude. The Highlands are a state of mind as well as a geographical reality. The North was seen as a primitive wilderness populated by savages. With the advent of the cult of the picturesque travellers began to view the Highlands as romantic and heroic, ideal and unspoilt. Most of the stock images of Scottishness – clans and tartans, whisky and porridge, bagpipes and heather – originate in the Highlands, and enrich the popular picture of Scotland as a whole.

 EILEAN DONAN CASTLE, LOCH DUICH

Eilean Donan is recognised as one of the most iconic images of Scotland all over the world. Situated on an island at the point where three great sea lochs meet, and surrounded by some majestic scenery, it is little wonder that the castle is now one of the most visited and important attractions in the Scottish Highlands.

Received from Thomas Goatherd

ROTHIEMURCHUS

Hidden in the forest of Rothiemurchus, this beautiful place is one of the most loved in the UK.  Rothiemurchus is a special place at the heart of the Cairngorms National Park, near Aviemore, in the Scottish Highlands.
The Cairngorms is the collective name for the high plateau to the south of Aviemore and which have four of the five highest mountains in Scotland.

ROTHIEMURCHUS, CAIRNGORM MOUNTAINS, HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND
Loch an Eilein Castle: www.rothiemurchus.net

The Rothiemurchus Estate includes Loch an Eilein Castle, an exceptionally lovely loch, surrounded by pines below a mountain backdrop and with an island castle, started in the 15C by Lachlan of Mackintosh but later enlarged and passing, as part of the estate, to the Gordons and then the Grants. Until the loch was dammed during the 18C  the castle could be reached by causeway.

Received from Hazel

ISLE OF SKYE

The Isle of Skye exerts a magnetic pull on visitors. It is a byword for spectacularly craggy mountains. Thus it is forgiven its relentlessly wet climate, which is inevitable as the big hill masses get in the way of the prevailing Atlantic weather fronts moving out of the south west. The new bridge linking Skye with the mainland may do little for the immediate scenery of the strait between. Sky has plenty of scenic wonders, thanks to its complex geology of overlapping ancient lava flows. 

Waller Hugh Paton (1828-1895) Entrance to the Cuiraing, Skye 1873

This painting is a spectacular example of Paton’s mature landscape work. It shows the Cuiraing (or Quiraing in modern usage), a remarkable landslip on the Trotternish peninsula of Skye. Here, the jagged spike of the thirty-seven meter high pinnacle known as ‘The Needle’ dominates the middle of the composition. Paton described the Quiraing as ‘an awful place’, despite the fact that it had become a top destination for artists and tourists alike. 

Received from Hazel, Scotland. As she says it is a very spiritualist place and great scenery!