The Isle of Skye – Edinburgh Bus Tour

For those who do not know, Isle of Skye is an island on the northwestern part of Scotland, voted as the 4^th prettiest island in the world by National Geographic. So of course my roommate and I, plus two of our new friends, all signed up for the International and Exchange Student Trip to the Isle of Skye.

Starting off the Trip

We hopped on a bus Saturday morning and headed there (it is a 5 hr non-stop drive from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye). However, along the way we made multiple stops at places such as Loch Lomond, Loch Tulla, Glencoe (some of these are similar to my Scottish Highland Bus Tour), Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain/Monroe in Scotland), Fort William (where we ate lunch among the ruins), and the Eilean Donan Castle which is the most photographed castle in all of Scotland and is featured in movies such as Made of Honor (with Patrick Dempsey aka McDreamy), the New Avengers, and Highlander. We drove across the Skye bridge around 6 pm and settled into our hostel before going out to explore the island. That night we listened to live music and hung out with other international and exchange students.

Making the most of a dreich time

As you can see from the photos, the weather was beautiful all day Saturday. Sunday, however, was a much different story. Let’s just say Sunday was the first day I can honestly say I experienced Scottish weather. It was dreich (recall The Cobbler).

It was rainy, cold, and windy. Despite this, we tried to make the best of it. We first went to the Sligachan Bridge which takes you over the River Sligachan. Legend has it that if you hold your face in the water for 7 seconds, you will be blessed with eternal beauty and youth. So of course we did it.

Next, we hiked to the Old Man of Storr which turns out to be these really cool sharp rock formations which jut out of this hill into the sky. Legend has it that there was a giant who lived in the area and when he eventually died and was buried, he was too big, and so his fingers (note this is the PG version of the story) were left sticking out of the ground. Unfortunately, it was far to windy and rainy for us to make it all the way up to the Old Man himself, and even if we had the rocks were shrouded in fog so it would not have been worth it, but we still had fun taking more photos. After this point, everyone on the bus was sufficiently soaked to the skin, and it took great energy for us to get out of the bus to see the next two viewpoints: Mealt Falls and Loch Mealt, and Lealt Gorge and Lealt Falls (Most of my photos from this time have been lost so please click on the links to enjoy the true beauty of these locations). Finally, we stopped in Portree—the largest town in of the Isle of Skye—for lunch (so basically anything warm we could find) and respite from the weather before heading back to Edinburgh.

Oh and finally, when we returned, soaked to the bone, we found these two lovely boys waiting for us. Don’t worry if you cannot read their signs. We couldn’t either. Apparently it reads “WECLUM HAAME”