My favorite photos from Scotland

Surprisingly exactly no one who remembers how long it took to finish my thoughts on Italy, I’m running behind on writing out my thoughts on our recent trip to and through Scotland. Or perhaps it’s better said that I’m running behind on publishing those thoughts, as writing them out is coming almost too easily (to the present tune of somewhere over 4000 words just to cover the first couple days.)

[Edit] The final tally was 22,000 words over 43 pages, which you can read blissfully broken up into chapters starting here.]

Suffice to say that a proper travelogue of our trip may take a little more time to finish and edit down so it doesn’t feel like you’re joining us in real time. [Second edit: HA!] I’m not sure what format that will take once I’m done putting everything on paper and organizing it into some semblance of order and storytelling worth reading, so in the meantime I thought that I would put together a quick post in a new format to showcase something that struck me deeply about Scotland.

See, the very plain truth is that I’ve never visited a more photogenic country. Over the twelve or so days we were there, I took 1400 photos. No, that’s not a typo. Between my two cameras (Sony A7R III, iPhone Mini 12) I averaged roughly a hundred photographs a day. And it wasn’t just me either. Beth took her own fair share in addition.

Scotland was so painfully beautiful that it took us twice as long to get anywhere as we’d planned, simply because we would gesture out towards the countryside and say something to the effect of “Look at this beautiful bullshit” before pulling over (again) to try and accurately capture the absolute majesty.

So to shake things up (read; “stall for time”) and maybe help me edit down and reduce some of the forthcoming posts on our trip through Scotland, here’s a photo essay with some of my favorite photographs from the two weeks we spent in the most beautiful country I’ve ever visited. Some are my favorites because the composition matches what I was seeing in that moment. Some are my favorites because they capture a particular feeling, or because they evoke a specific memory. Some just feel like they encapsulate a moment in time.

So more words to come soon, but in the meantime: enjoy the pictures.

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Truth be told, this is from the day before we left, but I’m counting it. To best mitigate any potential disturbances due to the current (shitty) state of air travel, we flew into New York a day before our flight to the UK. This way any delays stateside, or in the LA-NY bit wouldn’t prevent us from getting into the UK on time. As things went fairly smoothly, we ended up with a day to kill in NYC - a city I genuinely miss and adore. So after seeing some friends, we headed up to The Met.

I’m fascinated with textures and shapes. And standing up here, I loved the way the various curves intersected and overlapped. It wasn’t the perfect photo as I imagined it in my head, but it gives a good approximation of that moment of looking up and out and seeing these concrete rainbows intersecting, overlapping, and providing this wonderful sense of moving through space.

We were so charmed by Edinburgh. It was such a lovely, vibrant, warm city, and I wish we could have spent another week, month, or even year there. I took this photo just after getting off the train, and having dragged my very heavy suitcases up several flights of stairs instead of the gently sloping street one block over because Google Maps can go fuck itself. So despite being the very first photo I took in Edinburgh, it’s still somehow the photo that best captures how it felt to wander through the city. There was so much laughter and joy throughout, no matter whether you were in the middle of a tourist area or wandering amongst the locals. And for our three days there, we kept finding joy and laughter amongst the cobbles.

This was also from our first day in Edinburgh. We had just dropped off our bags, and were wandering through Old Town, when we turned a corner and there it was - Edinburgh Castle. This became a persistent theme of our travels. And maybe it’s the American in me, but it’s always a surprise and a delight when a castle just jumps out of nowhere to dominate the landscape.

This is, in many ways, how I’ll remember Edinburgh as a city. No matter where you are in the city, there’s always the chance that you’ll look up and see the castle on the hill. It’s not a perfect photo, seeing as it was taken late after dinner (and the vacation-obligatory post-dinner drinks) on our last night in Edinburgh. But it is an almost perfect encapsulation of my memory of wandering back to our apartment, through unknown streets, slightly tipsy on life and scotch, and seeing something magical on the horizon.

When we left Edinburgh for Aberdeenshire, much of what we drove through was farmland across low hills that sloped into the ocean. As I was white-knuckling the wheel in full panic and concentration for the first few days of opposite-side-of-the-road driving, I didn’t much get to appreciate the stunning views I was hearing about from the passenger seat. But near the end of our first day of driving, we pulled off to visit a distillery called Arbike, and I stepped out of the car to see this. It felt right for that moment; like I’d earned the reward of this view for having survived left hand driving through roundabouts for four hours.

In many ways, this is where I came from. My mother was a Fraser, though it took her whole life for her to find out. So the reason we went to Aberdeenshire in the first place was to see Castle Fraser - something Mom wanted to do, but wasn’t able. So these photos aren’t the best I’ve ever taken, but they’re important to me. I was able to be there, to see and feel and know this space. A place rooted to my own history. And walking up to this castle - the second one we’d seen in Scotland - it felt in some ways like I was able to check something important off of a list.

Setting out from Aberdeenshire to Inverness, we made the excellent decision to route ourselves through Cairngorm National Park. Or rather, Beth asked - and then insisted - that we route ourselves through Cairngorm National Park. This took us through the heart of the Highlands, and hooooo boy was I not prepared for how gorgeous everything was, all the time. Genuinely, it took us forever to get there, because everywhere we looked, there was something more magical. This was taken on the side of the road. Just a typical road and a typical view through the Scottish Highlands.

As a whole, the Highlands were stupidly beautiful. Oh, and see that castle? Yeah, we stumbled upon that earlier. Lemme frame it up for you the way we saw it…

We had seen a road sign for a castle (not uncommon) and decided “why the hell not.”

Two miles later, we’re sitting in a parking lot, and thinking “there’s no way this is real…” Standing there, in that moment, backlit by the sun, it looked like a painting.

The rest of the highlands merely looked like this. For hours. In all directions. It was dumb. And it meant we got into Inverness several hours later than we’d planned, due entirely to photographic distractions.

When the fae get a little too clever for their own good. (We did not follow this road towards “become the subject of a mystery podcast about their disappearance.”)

After a few days in and around Inverness for scotch tasting and kilt buying (more on that in later posts) we were off to Skye. And the “fuck me that’s gorgeous” hits kept coming.

This wasn’t even why we stopped. There was a sign advising us that this was the location of a battle that someone had heroically lost, so while Beth wandered off to learn about history, I wandered off to fall down a hill. Where I found this waiting for me at the bottom.

Were my shoes wet? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Did Beth freak out a bit when she came back to an empty car on an empty stretch of road where she could see everything except me for miles in all directions and I couldn’t hear her shouts because of the egregiously loud bubbling brook? Sort of.

It was a long drive to Skye. Longer still than we’d planned, because of my insistence that we keep stopping for photos. But we’d planning for nothing else this day except driving from Inverness to Skye so we could enjoy the next two days on the Isle.

Lemme back up a bit: Skye was one of Beth’s “must do”s for this trip. She had a few things she wanted to do across the island, so we had a somewhat difficult time finding a spot that would allow us to accomplish everything she had on her Skye list. I won’t say the place we found was a last minute booking, but I think this was the last place we actually secured for the trip.

We really lucked out though. Seaside, just outside of Broadford, it looked out over the sound with naught between us and the water but a single small road.

So when I say that we came home to this our first night on Skye, and that it set a new standard of beauty that the Isle would maintain for the next few days, I mean that Skye absolutely came out swinging big with this on our first night there, and did nothing but smash visual grand slams for days.

If there is a paradise on this earth, Skye may be it.

This, right here, is how I’ll remember Skye. Taken after a long hike up a mountain to see a big rock named The Old Man of Storr, this is what we looked down upon. And while I’ll admit that there were several times I was doubting my decision to let Beth take me hiking again, the views from the top were worth it.

Here are a few more:

Our view hiking up the mountain.

Looking off towards approaching stormclouds (while it threatened to rain, we rarely got more than a few drops.)

Another view from the top.

At the Summit, looking down towards the ocean.

Proof (of life.)

Later in the day, we stopped to meet these distinguished ladies. Who, despite having miles and miles of land to graze, all conveniently placed themselves within an arm’s reach of the fence by the road. I’m sure it wasn’t to get head scritches and snacks from tourists. But just in case it was, we paid the photo tax (spoiler alert: it was head scritches.)

This is how I remember the roads of Skye. Long stretches of single track roads, punctuated by brief bursts of small towns. If that looks like it’s only wide enough for one car at a time, you’d be right. Don’t worry - it’s bidirectional though. So there are rules as to who pulls off to let the other car by. For the most part, it works fine; tourists aside. Just remember to wave - the Highland Code must be obeyed.

Saying goodbye to Skye three days later, we headed off to catch a ferry back to the mainland. Or back to the slightly larger island. Whatever. We were headed to Oban - one of my “must-do”s.

The island sent us off with stormclouds on the horizon. But again, the threatened rain never came. We expected to be hitting Oban in a downpour, but once again our luck held and all we got was a little bit of drama across the sky for our journey.

Remember how I said sometimes you stumble upon a castle out of nowhere? That was this one. We crested a hill between Skye and Oban, and all of a sudden you saw this just sitting in the bay. It screamed Western Scotland, and we found ourselves joined by a van full of Canadian tourists and their kilted tour guide.

“I’ve no idea,” he responded when we asked him what it was called. “We’ve got a lot of castles in Scotland - can’t keep track of all of ‘em.”

We later found out it was called Castle Stalker (thanks Google Maps) which is both a terrifying name and an accurate descriptor of the way we flipped a u-turn on a highway in order to swing back around and grab telephoto shots from inside a bush.

Oban is painfully beautiful. I can only describe it as Scotland’s Monterey. Growing up around the distillery, set into a horseshoe bay, and ringed by small hills, it was stunning in every respect. We were only there for 24 hours, but I took twice as many photos here as anywhere else. And let me show you why.

It’s stunning in the day…

And just as much at night (thank you again, dramatic rainclouds.)

Climbing the hills behind the city, you get the most lovely views, almost by accident.

And the town just rolls into the space between the hills and the bay. Just lovely. I would live here if I could.

Unfortunately, our schedule dictated only a single night in Oban, but we made the best of it, absolutely cramming our afternoon, evening, and morning full of experiences so as to miss as little as possible before we left at midday the next day. Highlights included dinner of “Salmon, three ways” and “whatever three fish the chef trusts” at a restaurant on the pier, drinks at The Whisky Vault, chocolate at Oban Chocolate Company (twice), and of course: a tour and tasting at Oban, my favorite scotch distillery. In between, there was hiking up to the weird purposeless tower atop the city (apparently funded by a wealthy banker and architect solely to keep the city’s stoneworkers and craftsmen working and paid through the winters) and abundant (slightly jealous) perusing of local real estate listings.

After Oban, we headed into Crieff. And whether it was coincidence or circumstance that it finally rained on the day The Queen died, I’m not sure. All I can say is that navigating small rural roads that hug sheer cliffs isn’t fun to navigate in the rain, but even less so when dealing with oncoming logging trucks wider than the lanes, barrelling their way around a decreasing radius curve at 60mph.

I have a lot of memories of Crieff - as I mentioned, that’s where we got the news that The Queen had died, just 30 minutes after we got to our hotel. And it’s hard to separate our time there from that singular moment in history.

But Crieff was more than just a place where we were when something else happened. We saw Stirling Castle and the Wallace memorial. We had an incredibly friendly and interesting conversation in a pub with a total stranger (and now facebook friend) who treated us like we were long-lost family and offered to let us stay with him the next time we were in town. (And whose dog joined us for dinner.) And Crieff is also, entirely unexpectedly, where I had the most memorable meal of our trip. In a distillery. On my birthday.

The short version of this is that some time ago, Glenturret Distillery was bought by Lalique - the French glassmaker. And Lalique decided to open a fine dining restaurant inside the distillery. And holy shit did they take fine dining seriously.

Throughout our travels, we’ve eaten at some truly incredible restaurants - from family run multi-generational spots, to one, two, and three Michelin starred restaurants. We’ve eaten great food around the world. So when I say that this was the most creative, flavorful, and skillful meal I’ve ever had, I’m comparing it to some of the best restaurants in Paris and Florence, Estonia and Stockholm, Los Angeles and New York.

This wasn’t just the best meal of our trip - this was the best meal of my life.

So why this photo instead of something from this surprising and incredible meal? Because this is how it started. This was the scotch tasting that served as the entry point to the rest of the evening. I could post a photo of the foievioli (foie gras ravioli) or the lobster toddy or the Scottish Grouse, but this is the moment where I realized I was in for something special.

The moment they set down a simple scotch tasting (something we’d done nearly a dozen times by this point of the trip) and walked us through it as if our enjoyment of this was the single most consequential event in the restaurant’s history, I knew I was in for something special.

This was the last day of our trip, taken two days later in Dublin. No, Dublin wasn’t perfect - travel issues meant it took us a day longer to get there than we’d planned, and the single day remaining was mostly cold and rainy. But we still found ways to see some things we loved: we wandered through the city, we squelched our wet shoes through the Long Room library at Trinity College to see The Book Of Kells, and we spent half a day in the Guinness Factory enjoying not only the beer but the absolute top-tier exprience they’ve crafted to showcase their history.

And that night, as we looked towards dinner, not knowing where we’d go or what we’d find, the rain finally cleared, the sun started to set, and the sky lit up like fire. It felt like a send off: the UK telling us that we would be missed. That we would be welcomed back.

And we will be back. After all, as much as I joke that I photographed half of Scotland, that means there’s still another half to go.

Until then…