The US broadcasting company CNN has named Scotland as its top travel destination for 2013, you can have a look at a BBC article about it here.
We were listening to the radio when we were travelling down to England in October for our most recent road trip, and Scotland and tourism was a hot topic then too. In fact we were thinking to ourselves that we were going in the wrong direction as it came on the news that Edinburgh had been voted the best UK city to visit by tourists.
We couldn’t help laughing when a chap from the tourist board commented on the radio about it, his accent was extremely cockney and he sounded absolutely appalled that Edinburgh had won this accolade. He actually said that he could hardly believe it, mind you, the poor chap had probably never been to Edinburgh himself, he sounded like one of those strange people who never travel north of Watford.
The new Bond film has been getting lots of people excited about visiting Scotland and although I haven’t seen Skyfall, I’ve been told the scenery is the best thing about it. It’s Glencoe which has been impressing people, I’ve always found it to be almost too atmospheric but you won’t get that feeling when you see it on screen, I suppose. If you don’t know Glencoe, you can see some images here.
This you tube video was apparently taken just last week, as you can see, we’re having a very mild winter with hardly any snow in Glencoe at the moment.
I had no idea that it was Glencoe where Bond was in his film! It was all rather atmospheric now I come to think about it but the film called for it my opinion.
I have never been to Scotland, think the long drive puts me off!
Jo,
You’ll have to rectify that! You could drive up in two stages and stop over somewhere like Haworth for the night. We’re used to travelling up and down because we lived in Essex for a few years. We stop off at various National Trust properties to break the journey nowadays, so it’s really enjoyable.
The movie was fantastic – best of the modern Bonds, in my opinion. It was fun seeing all these places again in the movie. Scotland is quite beautiful and we enjoy our short visits.
I just couldn’t tolerate the persistent cold and damp for very long. It’s 68F and blustery here tonight and I’m shivering in sweatpants and a corduroy jacket. My husband thinks I’m nuts.
Oh Pearl, if only it was 68F here. That’s warm verging on hot here in Scotland!
Ev,
Yes, I begin to look around for somewhere cool when it gets to the high 60s, and wish I’d bought a fan, it’s just as well we’re all different I suppose.
Pearl,
I’ve heard that people who are big Bond fans have been disappointed in the film. I’ll probably watch it on TV eventually.
When it gets to about 70 F here (honestly it does sometimes!) I begin to melt and am very miserable. Obviously we have very different body thermostats, if I had a corduroy jacket on in 68 F I’d just about expire.
I’ve seen every Bond movie since Dr No and read all the books ’til Fleming’s passing(don’t care for the ‘in the manner of’ ripoffs. And I thought that Skyfall was not only a good Bond movie in its own right but Mendes did a wonderful homage to the iconic Bond detail…there were a few moments that resulted in cheers in the theater we were in (not just me!)
I’m glad that you are comfortable where you are. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Find your happy place.
Pearl,
You sound like my youngest, he has been into Bond for years but prefers the old ones. I’m going to be looking out for those details now.
The big question now is – which part of the frozen north that is Scotland will we be moving to, that is if we can get our house sold when the time comes. Stick a pin in the map maybe.
It took a few moments for me to realise that the car was travelling away from Glencoe village towards Rannoch! I think the best views are going the other way. However you did get a glimpse of the waterfall! Haven’t seen Skyfall yet.
Ev,
It’s years since we’ve been up Glencoe way, I thought there would have been more snow around. There was snow on the Lomonds in Fife last week, and they aren’t very high.
I didn’t know Skyfall was filmed at Glencoe. We haven’t seen the film yet but I’ll be looking out for the scenery. We spent a week near Glencoe last September – it’s most definitely a spectacular area and one I want to visit again.
Margaret,
The scenery is great but if it’s a grey day it can feel very forbidding and quite menacing – or maybe that’s me being just too imaginative.
I’d like to see more of Scotland some day. So far, the only time I’ve been “north of the border” was a trip to Edinburgh a couple of years ago.
Nikki-ann,
I hope you manage to get back here sometime, although Edinburgh is lovely as cities go, it’s very small compared with Glasgow. Of course my favourite parts of Scotland are along the west coast, the scenery is spectacular and unlike anywhere else in Britain.
Have you read or heard if the house in Skyfall is a real house somewhere in the Highlands? It’s so beautiful, although too remote for me. But I doubt I’d be annoyed by the frequent tooting of car horns there!
Joan,
I haven’t seen the film yet but the house which is on fire is just made of plaster and plywood and that part of the film was shot in Surrey. It is a typical Scottish baronial design though. It’s too remote for me too, I wouldn’t even go to live on an island, as so many people seem to want to do when they retire. I would be the mad woman standing howling at the edge of the water, looking over to the mainland!
I’m too claustrophobic to live on an island, so I’d be right beside you, howling my head off, too!
Joan,
That’s another thing we have in common then!
I’m looking forward to seeing Skyfall, especially because of the scenery. Some wonderful films are shot in Scotland. Stardust, which I loved, had some grand scenes in the wilds of ?Ross? I think. There are some mediocre ones (The Eagle springs to mind) and some truly awful ones too. Made of Honor I watched (on DVD, as I recall) purely for the promise of some Scottish landscape. Even Kevin McKidd couldn’t save that one. But I did enjoy the silliness of one sequence where they tried to tie a whole string of iconic Scottish sights into one chase scene. My memory of the film is clouded by its awfulness, but I think they started on what I recognized as the quay in Portree (in front of the Pink Guest House), raced off “into the woods”, around “the loch” (with the Glenfinnan Monument in the background), past “the castle” where everyone was staying (inevitably, Eilean Donan), and ended up next to another totally different loch in a forest.
To bring this back around to the video clip (and Skyfall), at one point in the film, one of the characters is staying in Glen Coe, in what I recognised as the Clachaig Inn. It’s been many years since I visited the Clachaig, but I still have very fond memories of it. I love Glen Coe; yes, it’s a bit forbidding, but to me that’s part of its beauty. I look forward to seeing it again before too long.
Scotland is my favourite place to visit–not just the wild, scenic places, but the towns and cities as well–I’d live there the rest of my life if I could!
Jan,
I’ve tried living in England but only managed two years there and wouldn’t live anywhere but Scotland now. I’ve only seen The Eagle and I went to that because I had read the book, as I recall it featured a lot of mist. There have been quite a lot of films which have taken liberties with the landscape which is a real disappointment to people when they realise that the locations they want to visit are nowhere near each other. There are so many beautiful places which people don’t know about and most people in England have never even visited Scotland. I love Perthshire and Stirlingshire, Oban and Loch Lomond of course which is close to where I grew up. The Clachaig Inn is that one with the sign ‘No hawkers or Campbells’ a friend of mine who married a Campbell (disaster) had to register there under her maiden name! I hope you manage to get back to Scotland soon. Thanks for taking the time to make such an interesting comment.
Thanks for the welcome, Katrina! I promise I’m not just buttering up the blog owner 🙂 when I say that, of all the places in Scotland I’ve been so far, the west is what I love the best.
Perhaps it’s because I had a wonderful holiday, a couple of years ago, taking a sail training class that went from Ballachulish down Loch Linnhe, up the Sound of Mull and into Loch Sunart, back across to Puldoran, and up the Sound of Kerrera and thence home. Apart from a (literal) gale in the Sound of Mull, it was clear and smooth the whole way, a real joy.
I have a special place in my heart for Perthshire, though, as one of my fondest memories is sitting in a bird-watching hide near Dunkeld at sunset. I don’t recall seeing any particular birds as the dusk gathered down, but sitting in that cool, calm place with no sound but the gentle lowing of cattle is something I will always remember.
I’m hoping to come across to study at Edinburgh or Glasgow later in the year: being eccentric, my version of midlife crisis is going back to university for more degrees. 🙂
Jan,
It looks like you’ve seen more of Scotland than I have! We’ve been doing road trips around Britain recently but mainly in England, we’ll have to concentrate on Scotland now. Dunkeld is one of my favourite places, there are some lovely walks around there and we’re lucky that it isn’t too far from us so we can go for a day out.
I hope you manage to get into Edinburgh or Glasgow, they’re both in nice areas. We had one son at Edinburgh and my husband was at Glasgow Uni so we know them quite well.
It was the opening of the salmon fishing season on the Tay at Dunkeld today, I thought you might like to see the wee report which was on the local news about it, you can see how chilly it is there at the moment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19192772