The country is lonely and mountainous. In the towns, there are festive celebrations. The inhabitants drink whisky and throw tree trunks. Scotland trips guarantee a great vacation!
If you tell a group of friends in a relaxed, light-hearted mood that your next vacation will be a trip to Scotland, there are usually two camps of opinion. There are those who burst into a storm of enthusiasm with shining eyes, often expressing the following wish at the end of their rapturous description: "Oh, could you bring me some shortbread cookies? And maybe a whisky?" The others - very few of whom have ever set foot on Scottish territory - remain cautiously silent. This is followed by comments such as: "Well, you've never been much of a sun worshipper", or: "Don't forget your umbrella!" Dear skeptics, rain is always followed by sunshine. And that moment when the sky opens up, the sun breaks through and a gloomy morning turns into a bright summer's day in the blink of an eye is nowhere more impressive than in the land of glens and bens. But that's just one of many reasons to travel to Scotland...
Edinburgh - Scotland's beauty
Edinburgh is the perfect place to start a trip to Scotland. The Scottish beauty enchants right away with its medieval buildings, quaint pubs, and at festival time it is particularly colorful and lively. Whether classical music in the Festival Theatre, bagpipes and fireworks in front of the castle or street art on the Royal Mile - every year in August, the Edinburgh International Festival and its offshoot, the Fringe, transform the city into one big stage.
Probably every vacationer visits the imposing Edinburgh Castle. After the Tower of London, it is the most popular attraction in the British Isles. The castle was built on a mountain, an extinct volcano, and is the unmissable focal point of the capital: whether you're enjoying your morning coffee in Elephant House (the café is said to have served as a writing room for Harry Potter author Joanne Rowling), having a picnic in Princes Street Gardens or strolling through the time-honored streets of the Old Town with its perfectly renovated houses. It would be easy to spend a whole week in Edd'nborrouh, as the locals say. But just outside the city gates, there is so much waiting to be discovered during a vacation in Scotland: wildly romantic coastlines, windswept islands, mystical castles, bog-black lochs, the vast skies of the Highlands...
Scotland: traveling in untouched nature
But first, we let ourselves be enchanted by the valley of the River Dee on our trip to Scotland, marvel at dreamy villages on the Victorian Heritage Trail, fairytale castles such as Crathes Castle and pay a flying visit to Balmoral Castle, the summer residence of the British royal family. North of Inverness, we then immerse ourselves in a piece of Scotland of dramatic beauty. The vastness, the unique light, the enormous cloud formations, the magic of the lochs (lakes), glens (mountain valleys) and bens (hills) in the Highlands are among the most impressive landscapes in Europe for good reason. Apart from a few Highland cattle grazing away, you will hardly meet a soul of cattle here. Instead, there is endless space and a peaceful silence that you will never forget.
Isle of Skye - taking pictures on the fly
The Isle of Skye welcomes us with royal weather: crystal clear blue skies, sunshine galore. The best conditions for capturing the beauty of the island on camera: the bizarrely shaped basalt tower Old Man of Storr (click), the dreamy harbor town of Portree (click), Dunvegan Castle (click) and to top it all off, we treat ourselves to a whisky tasting at the Talisker Distillery (gulp). Here we decide: Nessie can wait for us in his loch until our next trip to Scotland.