Scotland in general – now there’s a topic one could get carried away with! The whole of a beautiful country in one opinion, well maybe not quite all of it!

Last year (2000) we decided that we would like to visit Skye again, but this time do a bit of touring on the way there, and maybe on the way back too, if the money didn’t run out! Come with me on a brief but beautiful tour.

I will just say here that I am not going to go into great detail about every place that we visited or indeed the planning of the holiday as I have already written numerous opinions on these subjects. This opinion is about Scotland in general and I think our tour will give you an idea of what you can expect.

We actually stayed in Musselburgh, which is on the outskirts of Edinburgh about 6 miles from the city centre. We were within walking distance of the centre of Musselburgh and we discovered that this was a pleasant enough area in itself.

Our second full day here was to give us chance to visit M & D’s Theme Park, which is situated just south of Glasgow. This is Scotland’s only theme park, as far as I know. It isn’t anything on the scale of Alton Towers or Blackpool pleasure Beach but it was good fun and there were 5 or 6 white-knuckle rides so we were happy enough.

We arrived in St Andrews quite early, as it wasn’t much of a drive from Edinburgh over the Forth Road Bridge, which was a spectacular sight I can tell you. Just as a point of interest you only have to pay the toll on the Forth Road Bridge when travelling northbound. It is free if you’re travelling in the opposite direction. Anyway we had most of the day in St Andrews home of the famous championship golf course. St Andrews is an old University town with some beautiful buildings and the ruins of a castle. There are plenty of good shops, with lots of places selling golf equipment and clothing, as you would imagine.

We realised that we were only a mile or so from the coast here and the footpath across the fields was clearly marked, so we walked to the sea. Huge rocks formed the coastline there and we sat for ages just watching the sea crashing over the rocks before walking back to the mill. There wasn’t a soul about – it was lovely.

From here we visited Drumnadrochit, Fort Augustus and Inverness. The scenery around the loch is amazing, although we were a bit disappointed not to see Nessie, maybe she was on holiday! We walked from our hotel up through the woods to the Falls of Foyers, which is a lovely waterfall in the middle of the forest. The only sound we could hear was the water and we stood for ages just watching it and enjoying the peace of the place.

Ullapool is a lovely seaside town on the West Coast of Scotland. The sun was shining from a clear blue sky as we arrived so we got a pint each and sat looking out over the sea. We decided to take an afternoon boat trip out across the bay to see the seals basking in the sun. Another way to enjoy the beauty of Scotland and relax in the peace and quiet.

We had booked a self-catering cottage just outside Portree on the shore of Loch Snizort. It was so quiet there, the only things we could hear were the sheep bleating and the birds singing. It was like being in our own little bit of heaven.

As the Island, and Scotland on general for that matter, has plenty of rain there are some magnificent water falls here. Possibly the most spectacular of these is Kilt Rock Falls in the north east of Skye, where the water rushes out of the rock and falls vertically down the cliff face into the sea beneath.

We left the Isle of Skye after our blissful 7 days and headed down to Luss on the shores of Loch Lomond for one night.

Luss is a pretty little town where the filming of Take The High Road takes place, apparently, having never watched the programme it doesn’t mean a thing to me! We walked down to the shores of the loch to appreciate the peace and quiet and the beautiful view, I know I keep saying this but that’s how it is!