•8:45 PM
After having visited the Scottish country, I feel it's the best moment to write down some of my sensations towards this area.
First of all, I'd like to comment that in general, the Scottish people are undeservedly known for their coldness when treating people. To be honest, all the native people treated me and my friends very well, showing us some places or answering in a very friendly way. So, this stereotype of the cold and reserved Scottish is not true at all, at least if I just limit to my own experience.
As regards the Scottish accent, I found it quite hard to understand for a tourist whose mother tongue is not English. I found it really nice, though. It may sound a bit rude, but personally, I think it's a very special and lovely way of speaking that can't be found in other place in the world.
That said, I want to express my feelings about the different places I visited:
- I started my trip in Inverness, a Scottish town located in the Northern part of Scotland. Although it doesn't lack any basic service, Inverness is a very attractive place, since there are a lot of churches built along the river, which gives the visitor the opportunity of having a peaceful walk. Besides, there's an impressive castle on the top of a little hill, where we had the lucky chance of watching an excellent performance of a native orchestra made of bagpipes and other percussion instruments.
- Close to Inverness is the famous Loch Ness. Although it's a quite impressing place in terms of landscape, it's too crowded, so you might find it a bit stressful. Also, on account of its popularity, prices are sometimes too expensive, such as the visit by boat around the lake or the entrance fee for the Urquhart Castle. Except for these aspects, I reckon it's worth a visit, since there are a lot of less busy paths very appropriate if you want to do some trekking.
- Also near Inverness, there's a national park called "The Cairngorms". I wish I had stayed there for a longer time, as there are so many things to see. We just climbed the main mountain, named just as the national park, and this granite-made relief offers some attractive views of several ice-carved valleys covered by coloured heaths and a beautiful lake. It wasn't a bad day in terms of weather, so we could go up there, walking along some routes where the snow layers were thicker as we climbed. However, the fog didn't let us see the landscape from the highest areas of the mountain, and thank goodness it was a nice day. Another problem was the really little frequent services of the public transport, so it'd be a better idea to reach there by car. Anyway, I strongly recommend this visit, especially for trekking lovers.
- Later, we arrived in the Isle of Skye, a small and isolated place on the West of the country. Again, I wish I had more time to visit it all, and I wish the bus services were far more frequent (Indeed, sometimes there wasn't any bus in all the day). It looks like you must visit these places by car. Due to the lack of public transport, we could just stay in a few places, but I can assure that I have never seen such a beautiful area in my whole life. Everything is so natural, almost without human impact... To my mind, it's the most beautiful place I've visited in all this trip. Waterfalls, loads of mountains, firths, cliffs... Is there anything left?
- The next place we visited was Stirling, where we spent just half a day. As we arrived quite late, we couldn't enter some places such as the castle, but we visited the monument devoted to William Wallace, the most famous Scottish hero. It's a nice town that can be covered in just one day. And to finish with this town and just as an anecdote, I don't know if it was a coincidence, but we saw plenty of eccentric people walking around the streets (I mean, people with uncommon coulours in their hairs, wearing very striking clothes...).
- Finally, we travelled to the capital. Honestly, Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, with tonnes of medieval buildings that give the city a very appealing aspect. On top of that, we did the Sandemans company's tour, that never deceives the visitor, and we learnt a lot of that city's history (in fact, we did two tours with them, and we were taught a lot of interesting stories). Once again, I wish I had spent more days there, because I couldn't visit its museums, but anyway, it's a very beautiful city with hundreds of attractive places.
To conclude, I just wanted to outline the fact that I've really found this country extremely lovely, so it's one of the places you should visit once in your life.
First of all, I'd like to comment that in general, the Scottish people are undeservedly known for their coldness when treating people. To be honest, all the native people treated me and my friends very well, showing us some places or answering in a very friendly way. So, this stereotype of the cold and reserved Scottish is not true at all, at least if I just limit to my own experience.
As regards the Scottish accent, I found it quite hard to understand for a tourist whose mother tongue is not English. I found it really nice, though. It may sound a bit rude, but personally, I think it's a very special and lovely way of speaking that can't be found in other place in the world.
That said, I want to express my feelings about the different places I visited:
- I started my trip in Inverness, a Scottish town located in the Northern part of Scotland. Although it doesn't lack any basic service, Inverness is a very attractive place, since there are a lot of churches built along the river, which gives the visitor the opportunity of having a peaceful walk. Besides, there's an impressive castle on the top of a little hill, where we had the lucky chance of watching an excellent performance of a native orchestra made of bagpipes and other percussion instruments.
- Close to Inverness is the famous Loch Ness. Although it's a quite impressing place in terms of landscape, it's too crowded, so you might find it a bit stressful. Also, on account of its popularity, prices are sometimes too expensive, such as the visit by boat around the lake or the entrance fee for the Urquhart Castle. Except for these aspects, I reckon it's worth a visit, since there are a lot of less busy paths very appropriate if you want to do some trekking.
- Also near Inverness, there's a national park called "The Cairngorms". I wish I had stayed there for a longer time, as there are so many things to see. We just climbed the main mountain, named just as the national park, and this granite-made relief offers some attractive views of several ice-carved valleys covered by coloured heaths and a beautiful lake. It wasn't a bad day in terms of weather, so we could go up there, walking along some routes where the snow layers were thicker as we climbed. However, the fog didn't let us see the landscape from the highest areas of the mountain, and thank goodness it was a nice day. Another problem was the really little frequent services of the public transport, so it'd be a better idea to reach there by car. Anyway, I strongly recommend this visit, especially for trekking lovers.
- Later, we arrived in the Isle of Skye, a small and isolated place on the West of the country. Again, I wish I had more time to visit it all, and I wish the bus services were far more frequent (Indeed, sometimes there wasn't any bus in all the day). It looks like you must visit these places by car. Due to the lack of public transport, we could just stay in a few places, but I can assure that I have never seen such a beautiful area in my whole life. Everything is so natural, almost without human impact... To my mind, it's the most beautiful place I've visited in all this trip. Waterfalls, loads of mountains, firths, cliffs... Is there anything left?
- The next place we visited was Stirling, where we spent just half a day. As we arrived quite late, we couldn't enter some places such as the castle, but we visited the monument devoted to William Wallace, the most famous Scottish hero. It's a nice town that can be covered in just one day. And to finish with this town and just as an anecdote, I don't know if it was a coincidence, but we saw plenty of eccentric people walking around the streets (I mean, people with uncommon coulours in their hairs, wearing very striking clothes...).
- Finally, we travelled to the capital. Honestly, Edinburgh is such a beautiful city, with tonnes of medieval buildings that give the city a very appealing aspect. On top of that, we did the Sandemans company's tour, that never deceives the visitor, and we learnt a lot of that city's history (in fact, we did two tours with them, and we were taught a lot of interesting stories). Once again, I wish I had spent more days there, because I couldn't visit its museums, but anyway, it's a very beautiful city with hundreds of attractive places.
To conclude, I just wanted to outline the fact that I've really found this country extremely lovely, so it's one of the places you should visit once in your life.
1 comentarios:
Days well spent.Although I would rather have stayed another day in Edinburgh or in the cairngorms than the all-day-long excursion around loch ness. It was all right, but then again it was just a big lake and a very dilapidated and expensive castle.
And you forgot the sightseing from -almost- the top of the Beinn na Caillich, for me, one of the highlights of the trip.