OKAY!  Finally — the last of my pictures from Scotland.  Yes, I’ve been home for quite a while, but these were some cool places and I still wanted to share what they looked like.

Dunvegan Castle has been the headquarters of the MacLeod Clan for over 700 years.

Not surprisingly, Dunvegan Castle, the home of the MacLeod clan chiefs for the last 800 years or so, was chock full of old paintings of men named MacLeod wearing kilts and high socks.  After my visit there, I headed for the ferry from the Isle of Skye out to the Isle of Lewis & Harris, and the big semi next to my car said, “D.R. MacLeod Transport.”  Two of the workers who were getting me checked in on the ferry had name tags with the last name MacLeod.  Apparently the MacLeod clan is alive and well on Skye and Lewis & Harris, just like they have been since before Columbus sailed west.

The harbor town of Portree — the biggest ‘city’ on the Isle of Skye — was my home base for a few days on and around the Isle.

The Outer Islands have their own culture.  The area is known for its strong religious heritage – mostly the Presbyterian-ish Church of Scotland, as I understand it.  On Sunday, there was almost nothing open: I finally found one café and one gas station that were (apparently) heathen-operated.

The highway and other signs in the area are written in both English and Gaelic, but a long-time local I quizzed thought that was mostly symbolic.  He didn’t believe there were many people who spoke only Gaelic. I was surprised that I had no trouble understanding the Scottish accents in the Highlands and islands, even though I could barely understand the folks down in Glasgow.  (I was briefly concerned that I was going to be detained at the Glasgow airport because I was unable to understand and answer the several security-screening questions asked in Glasgow-accented “English”).

These 600-year-old carvings of swords, displayed inside St. Clements Church on the southeast tip of the Isle of Harris, probably once marked the graves of prominent members of the MacLeod clan.

Looking east from the southeast coast of the Isle of Harris, with the Isle of Skye on the horizon.

This igloo-looking monument on the Isle of Harris is a modern memorial to a group of protesting local farmers from the late 1800s. A part of it marks the spot where the local sheriff (literally) “read the Riot Act” to the protesters. The Riot Act was English law; if an unruly group gathered (creating a threat of a riot) the sheriff could read a section of the Act ordering them to disperse or else be arrested. I knew the modern idiom of “reading someone the Riot Act” — giving them a strong scolding or warning — but never knew its history!

Before I made the trip, I learned the words and music to “Scotland the Brave”.  It’s the anthem (sometimes regal and sometimes eery) you always hear Scottish bagpipers playing as an iconic musical symbol of the country.  At a minimum, I knew it would be running through my head while I was there, and I wanted to be prepared in case I was caught up in any pre- or post-Independence vote revelry and felt compelled to amuse, or to show some local musical allegiance.  I was ready play it on either guitar or ukulele.  Among the resulting disappointments:  no occasions arose where my would-be barroom antics would have been appropriate; no real patriotic revelry erupted anyway; and — worst of all — I learned that the song was a 20th Century creation (written perhaps in the 1950s).  Somehow I’d imagined it being played for those kilted soldiers who fought alongside Braveheart in the 1200s — not something written for a potential gig on the Ed Sullivan Show.

My most-remote destination was the Uig Sands area, on the west side of Lewis & Harris. At low tide, there was a mile or so of flat sand between my 400-year-old guest house and the water. At high tide, the Sands were flooded and the water was only a few yards away.

In one sense, the Outer Islands were a lot further from home than the mileage might make it seem.   I started toward home at about noon on a Tuesday.  A drive to the port where the ferry would leave the next morning; hotel overnight; ferry to an Inner island; drive to the town where I’d rented my car; taxi across the bridge to the mainland; train to Inverness; another train to Glasgow; taxi to Glasgow airport hotel; morning flight to Newark; airport tram; flight to Houston; parking shuttle; then my trusty Chevy Tahoe back to the house on Thursday night.  I spent almost my entire two weeks in Scotland on the out-of-the-way islands rather than seeing the major cities and sites.  I didn’t even make it to Loch Ness to see the monster.  I had a great trip, but I don’t think I’m ready to cross Scotland off my list.

Coastal sands on the Isle of Harris

Dunollie Castle, at the north end of Oban Bay

Scotland’s odd little Inner Hebrides island of Staffa is famous for more than sightseeing.  The 19th Century composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote a now-famous overture about it:  the Hebrides Overture (a.k.a. “Fingal’s Cave”).  Too bad there was no orchestra around to play it when I went to visit.  (You can listen to it here if it’s not playing automatically:  http://www.vicenzapuericantores.it/mp3/mendelssohn_hebrides.mp3 ).  The Isle of Staffa is just a few hundred yards across, and is a geological fluke.  It’s a volcanic island with a huge layer of crystalized basalt columns.  Its most famous feature is that sea cave Mendelssohn focused on, now called Fingal’s Cave. It’s about 200 feet deep.

Staffa

The trip back from Staffa consists of an ferry ride to the Isle of Iona, another ferry to the Isle of Mull, a car ride to catch the ferry back to Oban on the mainland.  The church in the pictures is the Iona Abbey, established in 563 A.D. by now-Saint Columba and now a busy pilgrimage destination for folks who (for some reason) want to visit Columba’s grave.  That prominent stone cross, St. Martin’s Cross, is over 1200 years old.  The pretty pictures of the bay and from the ferry are Oban Bay.

I was lucky to be able to travel Scotland with Jim Richardson and a couple of Scotch natives as guides. Jim is a long-time National Geographic photographer and is their go-to guy for Scotland; he’s been there dozens of times. In fact, the August 2014 edition of NatGeo has one of Jim’s photo essays from Scotland as its cover story. Great to have Jim to show about a dozen of us around  Scotland. That’s Jim in the red jacket waiting on the dock in the picture above (apparently someone from the group was late getting back to the boat . . .)

The Scottish Isle of Kerrera is just a few hundred yards off the mainland west coast, near the town of Oban in the southern part of the Inner Hebrides.  A few dozen people (one of whom tends to 100 or so pet parrots) live there.  The sightseeing highlight is Gylen Castle, built on the south end of the island in about 1582.

To get to Gylen, you take a short ferry from Oban, then walk about three miles.  The ferry is a small one-car ferry, so you just stand where the one car would normally be.   When you get out near the castle, there’s no visitor center, no admission charge, no security guards or park rangers.  It’s just out there by itself like it has been for the last 500 years.

The castle was built by the MacDougall Clan and used in support of James I – then the king of a united England, Ireland and Scotland.   In the mid 1600s, he was at war with the “Covenanters” (crazy Presbyterians, apparently).  They laid siege to the MacDougall Clan soldiers at Gylen.  Apparently the castle’s defense systems had one big flaw – access to fresh water.  The very thirsty soldiers holed up inside were eventually coaxed into coming out voluntarily, only to be promptly killed by their surrounding attackers.

Gylen wasn’t a true “castle,” but was more of a small watchtower or fort.  Its perch above the waters  was a perfect vantage point to watch for threatening ships entering the Firth of Lorn near Oban.  Now that same perch makes modest Gylen one of Scotland’s most picturesque spots.