Scenery of Scotland

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When it comes to pictures of the scenery of Scotland, sometimes it isn't the pictures that would ever make it into a conventional tourism brochure that say most about a place.

Nobody could say it was a calendar shot of the scenery of Scotland, but for me the view below sums up the lonely, bare uplands of the Grampian Highlands in the north of Scotland. Just a rolling plateau, crossed by walkers' paths and ancient rights of way. This is taken from the summit of Cairn Bannoch, a 'Munro' south east of Braemar. The path linking this hill to Broad Cairn (the hill-top on the left) can be seen faintly on the right. The head of Glen Clova in Angus can just be made out in the very centre. It's late afternoon in September, the wind has turned chill and it's time to leave these wide and empty spaces to the odd pair of patrolling ravens. Plenty of Scottish hillwalkers will know what I mean....

Incidentally, if these pictures of bare and breezy Scottish hills are going to make you feel a bit chilly, then some sunshine will warm you up. Take a look at the package holiday deals here. Great value and you certainly won't need the woolly hat.

A sense of space. John Muir Country Park in East Lothian from the Tynninghame end. The little town of Dunbar is on the horizon to the east. In less than hour you can be on Princes Street in Edinburgh. But would you really want to be? The scenery of Scotland isn't all bens and glens.

It's early spring. In fact, it's so early, I should stop pretending and just call it winter. This pic looks north-west from the "Gleneagles Gap", where the Ochil Hills allow one road through from the Forth Valley. It's a direct but sometimes overlooked route from Edinburgh to the Highlands. In this view, the famous Gleneagles Hotel is dead centre, visible as a thin pale line in the dark woodlands.


But isn't it obvious, in the pic above, where the real Highlands start, a little beyond? There's plenty of snow still on Ben Chonzie, the white plateau to the left, with Glen Turret opening beside it, below which is Glenturret Distillery at the top end of the little town of Crieff. But that's enough, this picture of the scenery of Scotland was supposed to speak for itself....

Not a tree in sight. Just a Moray Firth coast sea-town sheltering from the wind. There's a golf course below the cliffs. The clubhouse is the white building on the left, by the shore and left of the sea-stack. This is Cullen, on the Moray Firth, north of Aberdeen, east of Inverness. The houses on the horizon are part of Portknockie, the next community to the west.

On the edge of the famous 'Rough Bounds of Knoydart', Inverie, by the shore, is reached by boat from Mallaig, on Scotland's western seaboard. The pointy mountains look as though they have been drawn in as a backdrop - but what you see is what you get. In a nice way. And, yes, you're quite right: this is more of a conventional 'bens and glens' pic. But, hey, I had to hike a bit to take the shot and I was being eaten alive by the pesky local midges.

There are more pictures here of the beautiful scenery of Scotland.