Scottish Islands Blog

My final blog post is going to be on The Isle of Skye, which is the largest island of the Inner Hebrides and is hugely popular with tourists. The capital of Skye is Portree which provides bus services to Inverness and Glasgow as well as buses around Skye. Portree also holds a number of events including the Portree Show, the Skye Highland Games and also the Skye half marathon. More recently Skye have introduced a Skye Live Festival which is held during a weekend in September which see's a number of both ceilidh bands and DJ's perform. As an islander when I think of Skye I think of the ferry you get from Uig, which is the port where you can get ferrys over to Uist and Harris. When getting the ferry you will have to go over the Skye bridge which joins together Skye and Kyle of Lochalsh. Before the Skye bridge was built in 1995 people who wished to go to Skye had to wait for a ferry that would take them over which would have taken a much longer time than it would now of days

Stornoway is the main town of the Isle of Lewis which has a population of around 8,000 and is the largest town in the Outer Hebrides. Stornoway is home to many historical elements, one of which include Gearrannan Black House Village which are old thatch cottages located in Lewis that have been transformed into self-catering houses for visitors/tourists. The cottages have also been changed into a museum, a visiting centre and a café. These cottages were built in the 1800's with the purpose of separating citizens to their animals/livestock and were originally known as white houses and had residents in them until 1970. This is in an ideal location for tourists as its close to the Callanish Stones. The Callanish Stones are a number of standing stones on the Isle of Lewis that have existed for 4,000 years located on the North West coast of Lewis. It has been suggested that some of the oldest stones have been around since 2000BC however, it wasn't until the 1990