Heading to Scotland the first week of September. After our stay in St. Andrews, we have 4 nights available for Western Scotland. We will be driving from St. Andrews to the Isle of Skye. Also interested in the areas around Glencoe, perhaps Oban & Fort William. After that we will drive to Glasgow, drop off the rental car and then take the train south to Chester. Do two nights in Skye give us enough time there? Looking for suggestions as to what might be a good base after we leave Skye? We prefer a minimum of two night stays, but not opposed to a one night if that makes more sense. Our interests are beautiful scenery, some light hiking, and in general, just exploring and enjoying the area. Our preferences for lodging are a B&B or small inn. If anyone has specific suggestions for any of those, or things to see and do along the way, those would be most welcome. Thanks for your assistance!
Posted by
3122 posts
I'll put in a recommendation for Inveraray. It's a lovely town with all Georgian architecture. The castle is beautiful inside and out (gardens) and has a walking trail up to the signal tower. There's a historic gaol (jail) though I haven't been. A few miles south along Loch Fyne is the Auchindrain Township open-air museum, with about 12 miles of walking trails. There's a helpful TI office in town, and several shops selling traditional woolens. For lodging and daytime meals in Inveraray I can recommend Brambles, and for dinner/pub the George Hotel.
Posted by
Last Frontier aka Alaska 🏔️
3226 posts
We will be staying in Oban for 3 nights after our 2 nights on Isle of Skye.
We plan to do the three islands tour of Iona, Mull and Staffa and go lawn bowling! Ha! I saw RS do it on his video of Western Scotland and thought it would be fun to try. It will be a down day for us after some busy ones.
Posted by
Delaware
1376 posts
Hi, TB79,
If you have a couple of days during your time on Skye, you could take the CalMac ferry from Uig to Tarbert on Harris. Harris has some of the most beautiful, stunning beaches in the world. I'm not kidding - look up the reviews for Luskentyre and Scarista on TripAdvisor. Plus, if you drive up to Lewis, you'll find, among other wonderful things, the Dun Carloway Broch, and the Standing Stones at Callanish, which are much more dramatic and mysterious than Stonehenge.
There are some great hikes on Harris and Lewis, and amazing land and seascapes.
Happy travels!
Mike (auchterless)
Posted by
New York City, NY, USA
5678 posts
I want to make sure that you know it 's a good 6.5 hours to drive from St. Andrews to Portree. You'll want to expect the trip to take all day as you will want to stop and enjoy the scenery and have some lunch. You add at least a half hour to go via Glencoe. Have you found the ViaMichelin Route Planner? It's quite useful and you can add cities to see what different routes are like.
I would suggest that you return to Glasgow via the ferry to Mallaig. If you want to do a full day of driving consider continuing down the coast to Kilmartin Glen before heading over to Glasgow.
Posted by
OP
Indiana
808 posts
Thanks t o everyone for their suggestions! We've tweaked our plan to a bit to be more leisurely. Will be taking the ferry to Mallaig. so I will book those tickets far in advance.