beautiful places in scotland

i'll try and get in touch when i'm in edinburgh keith! can you email me your number?

and thank you ailsa for the petrol tip! i actually thought about it the other day when i was looking at the map where there looked to be hardly even any roads, whether there'd be petrol! maybe i should fill up the 5L emergency can first as well just in case.

I'll be at B&S too having somehow never even heard their music.

Ken, you will find petrol in most places you go - people do live all over the Highlands and need to get petrol and driving hundreds of miles just to get petrol is a silly option, but as Craig pointed out, it's often well over £1/litre. I got skinned for £1.05 a litre in Garve recently.

http://static.flickr.com/69/211195780_60c5923199_o.jpg

David Hume Tower
http://static.flickr.com/57/211619819_68e6a52e49_m.jpg

Main Library
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Glencoe:
http://static.flickr.com/49/144176042_fa91f77fc3.jpg

Cuillins from Elgol (Skye)
http://static.flickr.com/55/142937810_32f1ec7ec7.jpg

Old Man of Storr (Skye)
http://static.flickr.com/46/142937203_1c24b7d286.jpg

View from funicular train on Cairngorm
http://static.flickr.com/21/29234088_1fbb910ddd.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/jamiefake/P8030512TEMP.jpg

I also really liked St Abb's Head (just over the border from Berwick):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/jamiefake/P8010493TEMP.jpg

Gairlock
Scourie
Pretty much everything

Mid highlands

Glenmore National Forest
Cairngorms
Findhorn Valley
Camp at Lock Morlich

how far away is north berwick?

Or maybe she was just camping on Princes Street Gardens?

But wait...a plan is forming in my small brain. If your tent was big enough you could probably claim to be a venue - put a little sign up Venue 446 - The Tent - and tell everyone it's sold out.

Glenmore National Forest
Cairngorms
Findhorn Valley
Camp at Lock Morlich

Rule No. 1 - learn to spell Loch, even if you can't pronounce it. Gairloch has excellent beaches if the weather's nice. I'm also very fond of Inverewe Gardens, but I don't know if walking through gardens looking at plants is your thing. This is about 10 miles or so from Gairloch, and Poolewe is a nice wee place to stay (I used to work in one of the hotels there several million years ago when I was a young thing).

i'll keep looking for a proper camp area, i might just have to head up and hope for the best! worst comes to worst i can we can pitch up some countryside outside edinburgh and hope nobody steals our tent.

Haha, this has been the rumour for years. I think it's basically down to the doors being locked. You can go up the stairs, which I did once, for a look (largely at the view, but in part to see if there were any dead winged monkeys about). I didn't see anything of the sort, but the view's great.

Every year, a bunch of German punks used to turn up for a punk festival at the Tap on Lauriston Place (Actually, I should put 'German Punks Alight Here' on my underground map). They used to camp on the Meadows. Dunno if the Police moved them on, but the Tap's been demolished (bit of luck there), so no more punks.

It's probably the only road.

Don't take Keith as an authority on stuff, is my advice.

Ooh, Ayrshire places. Culzean Castle is nice. Electric Brae is crap. There's some Robert Burns stuff. And a lot of golf courses. Largs/Saltcoats/Ardrossan/Stevenston etc are all horrible faded seaside towns that used to be popular before they stuck package-holiday-central-airport right in the middle of them all - like a Scottish Scarborough with nicer roads getting there but less to do when you arrive. (xpost, yeah, like what Laurel thought Girvan would be like)

I've never been to Girvan.

the pics of durness are my fav..
http://static.flickr.com/57/227468577_ddd22d7a06.jpg?v=0
http://static.flickr.com/67/227468545_14cff14a97.jpg?v=0

i love seeing shadows of clouds esp on hills!
http://static.flickr.com/59/227468905_6d0c644837.jpg?v=0

I just went again last weekend! it was so good

wow i went to that exact place Elgol as treefell took a picture of upthread!!!! and glencoe too! yes this time was just two days staying in kinlochleven went to Eilean Donan and then to skye for the first day and then took the cablecar up to aonach mor and saw an unbelieveable amount of snow. it was so amazing.

i think i want to go up to beautiful places in scotland every year.

Damn, you can drive, can't you? I want to go!

yeah lots of driving was done!

next time i might go to mull + iona.

Iona is the most beautiful place on earth. Seriously. Or at least, it was when I was a child. Can I come with?

OMG I mistyped Loch.

Scotland is beautiful, just avoid the midges if you can.

Impossible

I believe a circular wall of fire is effective.

I am going a world tour of Scotland in September. Just going to take my bike and a tent and make off into the wilderness. Exciting.

Anything I should aim to see? I'm planning to start off from the Cowal Peninsula.

HEY GUYS

I'm going again. (2 days: weds 10th aug-11th aug, hiring a car from edinburgh) any good recommendations? maybe not drive so far if poss....

I'm staying a couple of nights at my friend's who lives in dunfermline! will mostly be going into edinburgh though (whisky fringe on the saturday)

you will have the pleasure of taking the train across the amazing Forth Rail Bridge, which can be seen from various points in Dunfermline.

Yes look forward to that!

I think Aberdour/Burntisland and East Neuk will appeal to my friend (particularly the great fish and chips! any particular recommendations?)

Orkney may be a bit too much of a drive for this trip. Will be good to see some good hills/mountains too if there are good ones around!

There's a couple of places in Anstruther that have great reputations for their fish'n'chips. Neither is cheap and both suffer from long queues but all reports are that it's well worth the wait.

There's not much in the way of high hills in Fife - Largo Law is probably the biggest and I'd say it's worth the drive through Upper Largo towards St. Andrews for the view across the Forth.

A fairly picturesque place with hills near Dunfermline is Loch Leven which is just off the M90 on the border between Fife and Perth & Kinross.
Perth itself is a pretty nice place in a market town kind of way and depending on the route you take there's some nice scenery.

previous trips:
1: fort william and drumnadrochit christmas 2002
2: edinburgh -> glencoe -> durness -> ullapool -> inverness -> glasgow -> edinburgh august 2006
3: kinlochleven, skye, aonach mor april 2008
4: ardrossan -> brodick march 2009
5: edinburgh -> pittenweem/Anstruther aug 2011

can't believe it's been almost 3 years already!

Will be up again for 5 days in April - any good suggestions? I am thinking of currently getting a short-let house as a base and take day trips (will hire a car). I guess around that ballachulish/glencoe area might be convenient, but not sure appreciate any tips!

maybe it's time for mull?

been living away from scotland for 3 years now, going back for a couple weeks in september. going to skye for the first time for a long weekend. really looking forward to it.

not jingoistic enough to contend that the highlands and western islands are the most beautiful place on earth - in fact i absolutely adore the pacific northwest and am amazed by the grandeur and sheer scale of some of the landscape here - but there's just something about them that i can't get enough of.

I had a cracking weekend in Skye earlier this year at friends' wedding in Isleornsay. Lots of lovely driving about looking at hills and that (also llamas! though they were on the mainland somewhere near the Kintail end of Loch Duich). It's great.

previous trips:
1: fort william and drumnadrochit christmas 2002
2: edinburgh -> glencoe -> durness -> ullapool -> inverness -> glasgow -> edinburgh august 2006
3: kinlochleven, skye, aonach mor april 2008
4: ardrossan -> brodick march 2009
5: edinburgh -> pittenweem/Anstruther aug 2011
6: edinburgh -> ballachulish -> kinloch forest (skye) -> ullapool -> drumnadochit -> pitlochry apr 2014

back again in August! Probably should visit new bits. Likely Kinghorn will feature. Suggestions welcome!

I've done more than a few bothy supported walks, two of the more memorable ones were glenfinnan to knoydart, and one to peanmeanach beach - not a long walk but we did it at one am on a moonless night with no torches!

Kinghorm, well the east neuk of fife - pittenweem, anstruther, isle of may nature reserve, st andrews. note: despite spending four years in st andrews i've never been to any of those others!