Scotland Tour 2019: The Isle of Skye and the Faerie Glen

​We left Plockton on a dreicht morning and wound our way to Skye, encountering normal Scottish road hazards in the Highlands.

Yes, that's a single track road, and the drivers seemed to take oncoming traffic (and sheep) in stride by pulling off to one side (or occasionally backing up to a safe passing spot) to allow the other vehicle to pass. I'm sorry to report the sheep did not share the same sense of sharing and simply toddled around until they at last wandered off the road.

Below are a few photos of our trip to the bridge to Skye.

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The views from Skye were fantastic. I'd never get anywhere if I was able to stop the bus every time I saw something I wanted to photograph!
The Cuillin Mountains and the rolling hills. I could see the Isle of Raasay at one point where MacLeod, a book in the Ghosts of Culloden Moor series is set. Visiting there is still on my list.

​Uig is a lovely town on Uig Bay. There is a stone tower which turned out not to be a castle turret, but a tower built around 1860 by Major William Fraser where his tenants came to pay their rents. Though the windows are slits you would find on a medieval tower to fire arrows through, Uig Tower was built purely as a show of wealth, and not for defense at all.

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In the hills above Uig is the Faerie Glen. The path wound upward over stones and past rounded hills until the real world was lost from view. The first stop (other than to catch my breath) was the faerie circle. There doesn't seem to be actual folklore linking this area to a specific tale, but we were assured the faeries created the landscape, and they still lived there.

Our goal was the Faerie Castle, a large stone which looks like the ruins of an ancient castle, and is for some reason known as Castle Ewan. Imagine standing in the mist and silence, viewing this magnificent scene.