Skye, Lewis, and Harris

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This is like Christmas in July but the opposite because I forgot to write about our summer trip to the isles of Skye, Lewis, and Harris until now.

We had been to Skye when we visited Scotland before moving here. Tourism on Skye is taking over to the point of becoming a problem, but it is hard to resist visiting the island. It's perfect.

The first leg of the journey meant renting a car and driving for the first time in a year! (For Craig. I barely drive in the US and I don't drive here.)

We made it to Portree, a central town on Skye. The highlight for me was hiking the Old Man of Storr. We also walked to a lighthouse at the tiptop point of the island, after the most aggravating and terrifying parking situation at the top of the cliff. And we went fishing.











After that first evening and two full days on Skye, we drove onto a ferry (our first ferry with a car experience) and made it over to Harris, in the Outer Hebrides. It's much quieter here than on Skye. I'd heard Luskentyre Beach was beautiful, so I made us drive into the middle of nowhere to find it. It met my expectations and exceeded Craig's. Then I made us drive into the middle of nowhere for real for real to find some distillery because we had time. I don't know how we didn't get lost, but also we kind of did, because we couldn't even find the place for the longest time, but eventually we had to ask some man whose driveway we were in and he sorted us out. It was a small and local distillery that we toured with a nice German couple and we were happy. Finally, we stopped by the underwhelming Standing Stones of Lewis on the way to our hotel.

Our hotel had a restaurant attached, which was one of only like three places open on the Sabbath I kid you not. And also where were the other restaurants on the island? I don't know so I'm glad we booked here. We ate leisurely meals in sometimes silence because they didn't really play any background music, which was somewhat strange, but probably we needed the silence. When was the last time we experienced it? When was the last time we slowed down?

We did more hikes and coastal walks. We broke the Sabbath. We drove without traffic. We listened to Miles Davis on repeat.







It was windy at the tiptop of Lewis.




When we left, we stopped by Harris Distillery which is conveniently located right by the ferry. They are pretty new and really into branding. They make gin now because its quicker and you can start to make a profit that way while you work on your whiskey.





We spent one last night on Skye, in Broadford this time, in a camping pod which was amazing and I want one. The only trips I want to do now are anywhere in the mountains in a pod. Dying to do another trip much like this next summer, but for longer than a week.













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