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San Marino 2

August 16, 2016 2049 x 2560 Backpacking Italy and Greece Will
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2025’s significance will forever be the year we go 2025’s significance will forever be the year we got married, but it’s been ferociously fast and largely great weather and full of as many adventures and as much socialising as we could fit in, so the twenty photos on this post don’t come close to covering even the best moments of a fantastic year. Great memories include: • Beth’s birthday getaway to Argyll, in particular a hike in Puck’s Glen (not long after that crazy storm) and a trip to the @theboatshedlochgoil for incredible toasties and waffles. • All the places that @atlasmackenzie’s walks took us, including a wonderful photoshoot with @highlandhutter for Tails of Scotland on his croft above Oban, and later the amazing book launch. • Completing my first (and starting my second) season with @inverleithhockeyclub; helping the 3s get promoted, reaching a cup final and celebrating those achievements with the boys. Scoring a few goals along the way felt just as good as when I was a kid! • The amazing help of so many friends and our families to set up our wedding on Seacliff beach, and then our reception at @johnmuirtipis. Without the love of so many wonderful, amazing people, we’d never have been able to pull that off - including setting up benches and speakers on the beach, my cousin learning Caledonia on his fiddle for Beth’s walk down the aisle. Friends helped set up everything from lighting and music to the bar and mixing drinks later on. We had the best day imaginable. • Our four day mini-moon in Fife, along the East Neuk’s villages and in St Andrews. • @laurenevemayberry’s gig • Birthdays and special occasions with friends and family, including @xxlouise_lxx’s on the beach in St Andrews - with more toasties! • Dressing in Barbie and Ken’s rollerblade costumes for Halloween. • Board games, pizzas and street food throughout the year, especially when one of us has a reason to celebrate or a reason to need perking up. 2026 will bring with it Beth’s 30th, our honeymoon to Rhodes, hopefully a trip to Skye, Copenhagen, Devon/Cornwall and Germany, and all the places we haven’t planned yet. Here’s to you, from all of us; hope 2026 is incredible for you and yours 🫶 #newyears #wedding #scotland #hogmanay
Oban, gateway to the islands, dominated by the mag Oban, gateway to the islands, dominated by the magnificent McCaig’s Tower. . #scotland #oban #mccaigstower #visitscotland #ig_scotland
Iona and its Abbey … Iona was one of my favourite Iona and its Abbey … Iona was one of my favourite parts of our trip to Mull. Driving for well over an hour from Tobermoray down to the south of Mull and then west and back north-west, skirting its fabulous coast most of the way, and taking in an amazing single-track driving road, you arrive into Fionnphort - surrounded by its stunning pink granite rock - and take the ten minute ferry trip over to secluded, peaceful, Iona. … We took the ferry unsure what we would find, knowing a little about the history of this little island - that it was the site of St Columba’s monastery, which he and 12 others founded after arriving from Ireland in 563 AD, influentially introducing Christianity into Scotland, and the supposed later burial place of many Scottish and Viking kings - but unaware of what else to expect. … I suppose I was hoping to feel something - to understand why this was where Columba chose, or why it has become such a place of pilgrimage, both religious and for those seeking a spiritual or non-religious peace. To understand why this was where Christianity first took refuge from the seas and from where Christianity would be spread to what was a pre-Scotland ‘North Britain’ in those times. To try to understand why you would choose this place as the home of your monastery, given the litany of islands all around the west coast. To understand what was so special about it. To understand why kings would be buried here. And I found my answer, more on that below. … Given our experience of visiting the Voldermort’s horcrux cave-like Isle of Staffa the day before (see the IG post before this one for that), in driving rain and mist, coming to Iona in fair, calm weather was such a Yin and Yang experience. There, you could almost imagine it a place of lingering evil, whereas Iona was like Staffa’s vaccine. … Iona’s village was quaint, a mix of local businesses selling crafts and traditional items such as jewellery and wool, diversifying/topping up their income, as Highland communities often do, e.g. selling handmade pizzas at nights. I loved it. … The Abbey that now exists where Columbia’s monastery had been is wonderful… (Story parts 2 and 3 continue in the comments)…
Fingals’s Cave and the Isle of Staffa … It’s very Fingals’s Cave and the Isle of Staffa … It’s very hard to believe that people lived on Staffa, if not continuously, certainly at different times over the preceding 3000+ years. … Taking the boat six miles around and across the Sound of Mull, past seals and dolphins who are the closest inhabitants now, you begin to see the hulk of volcanic matter rise, as if from nowhere, on the horizon. Closer and closer she appears, as the waves force your boat around unnaturally - jerking its wide-eyed explorers up and down - as you arrive at the only man-made part of this incredible little island, it’s small concrete jetty. … As you step ‘ashore’ you’re met only with the blackest of volcanic stone. The iconic columns of rock are millions of years old, raised from the seabed by lava escaping, then cooling, into incredibly unusual stepping-stone like tiles on the foreshore. And it is by following these along a hand-railed route just feet above the frothing surf that you snake a safe path to the mouth of the legendary Fingal’s Cave, a natural cavern with hair raising acoustics and spellbinding colours. … What it felt like, visiting Fingals’s Cave, was the chapter of Harry Potter 6 where Dunbledore and Harry visit Voldermort’s horcrux cave. It was beautiful and dangerous in equal measure and had it requested a blood offering to enter it I wouldn’t have been surprised. … As crazy as it is to say, the most interesting part of Staffa might be its surface. Ground penetrating radar shows rig furrows - past generations had somehow been cultivating this isolated place; the audacity of that undertaking! There’s also a bothy ruins with confusing origins owing to a unique window arch that suggests it wasn’t a home or a chapel, the two most likely uses. And of course a cairn registering the highest point, and literally nothing more - an expanse of undulating volcanic, grass/covered rock in the wild grey ocean. … The happiest face of all was @atlasmackenzie’s - who found a new BFF in Watson - and who I believe has started a detective and exploring agency double-duo. … #visitscotland #staffatours #scotland #staffa #fingalscace #hiddenscotland #mull #voldermort #harrypotter
Assynt has one of Scotland’s most enigmatic landsc Assynt has one of Scotland’s most enigmatic landscapes, where the roads that cut the 3 billion year-old Lewisian Gneiss, and half-billion year-old Torridonian strata, offer not only vital pathways for communities but - from an artistic sense - stunning dividing lines, from every perspective. I always find myself utterly in love with my surroundings as I pass through. In the background here is the last of the Quinag range, specifically Spidean Coinich. This massif dominates the skyline as you venture these lands, and - as hard as it is to imagine now, in this rocky, barren-looking place - was once the site of ancient woodlands. From the first time I visited, with my dad, as a child, to the day I last passed through, I’m ever in awe of this rugged, unique place. … #assynt #scotland #scottish #highlands
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