I knew I was approaching a place far less magical as I headed south to Loch Ness, where every shop, café, hotel, pub, pizzeria, or tourist agency comes bedecked with a rendering of the sea monster Nessie. Although Loch Ness is the U.K.’s largest body of freshwater, it’s nowhere near as pretty as Loch Linnhe, its sparkling blue framed by forests and mountains, or the celebrated Loch Lomond. I drove off just as another tour bus pulled in.
Heading south from Loch Ness, the countryside is bejeweled with emerald vistas and lochs that sparkle like sapphires. Mile after mile feels enchanted, primordial, and I understood perfectly why they’re shooting the new Harry Potter movie near Fort William, at the foot of the famed mountain Ben Nevis. Such a landscape puts you in an ancient mood, just perfect for visiting Kilmartin, a small town on the west coast in Argyll that’s one of the country’s most overlooked great spots (the guidebooks barely mention it). Kilmartin claims to be the very navel of Scottish history—150 prehistoric sites lie within six miles—and there is a museum to prove it.
The real treasure, though, lay outside. Wandering the nearby countryside I came across sites charged with the animist magic of an earlier era and, in the area known as Temple Wood, a standing stone circle that, while smaller, bears a startling resemblance to Stonehenge. In the clean afternoon sunlight (still no rain), I climbed Dunadd Hill, a steep, 175-foot-high outcropping that rises from flatlands of bog and heather known as the Moine Mhor (“Great Moss”). “It is a royal place,” writes Neal Ascherson in Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland. “It is, for most Scots, the place where Scotland began.” Legend has it that, back in the sixth century, Fergus mor mac Erc came across the water from northern Ireland, where he’d ruled the kingdom of Dalriada, and laid claim to the lands around Dunadd. Fergus built a fort atop this hill, although what remains today is very little—most famously, two stone carvings of feet and one of a boar. Still, that’s enough.
For the visitor, Dunadd has an astonishing 360-degree view of the countryside. I stood atop it for a long, long time, taking it all in—the low growl of tractors, the cattle ambling about with bovine lassitude, the River Add flowing doughtily to the sea. The occasional car crawled along a bumpy road, obviously hoping to save its shocks. In the distance, the dark waters of the Sound of Jura occasionally flashed like low-hanging thunderclouds. Fifteen hundred years ago, standing here would have made anyone feel like the king of the world. Even now, I felt as if I could see forever.
Or at least to Edinburgh. I couldn’t, of course. Scotland’s great stone lady of a capital was a winding five-hour drive away, though in some profound sense, it seemed even more distant than that. Entering Edinburgh after days exploring the natural beauty of the Highlands, I almost felt I was seeing Scotland’s history in time-lapse photography. Everything was there—Castle Rock (first occupied in 1000 b.c.); the medieval Old Town; the elegant, Georgian New Town; and the chic new international city with its spruced-up waterfront, bevy of boutique hotels, and shops selling pomo designer kilts made of Chinese silks. This was no longer the gloomy Auld Reekie of Robert Burns fame.
What the city shares with the countryside is an obsession with food, perhaps the truest harbinger of Edinburgh’s embrace of modernity. It has shockingly expensive New Scottish Cuisine, New British Cuisine, New Scottish-French Cuisine, all in love with local ingredients. It has acclaimed restaurateurs like James Thomson, owner of The Witchery by the Castle, which is also a charming hotel, and acclaimed chefs like Michelin-starred Martin Wishart, whose small restaurant politely scoffed when I tried to reserve a table ten days in advance. Although I’d heard that the bolder chefs were working up fancy, foie-gras’d new riffs on the haggis (perhaps hoping to do for this unlovable dish what Daniel Boulud has done for the humble hamburger), I could never find such a thing on any menu.
The day before I flew back to L.A., I had lunch in the luminous café at the back of Valvona & Crolla, an Edinburgh institution since the 1930s, which locals insist is the best Italian delicatessen outside of Italy. It’s certainly the best in the U.K., with a staggering collection of Italian wines, and, thanks to the European Union, fabulous meats and cheeses that even great New York delis can’t import. After days of eating huge meals by Scottish chefs cutting loose after centuries of bad cooking, it was a relief to have the sublime simplicity of cheese panini, a platter of cured meats, and a pizza made to perfection.
Pinterest
