Scotland should be renamed into “Wetshoeland”. If it is not raining for once, you still get wet when hiking: from below. Laudably, there is another category in Scottish hiking guides besides the usual ones of difficulty and condition: the “bog factor”. If it is high, you can be sure that your shoes and stockings will be soaking wet after your walk. We had the smart sense to leave another pair of shoes and socks in the car, so that we were always able to start our next hike with dry feet.
Sunburn on Skye, ha, ha!
A real “Nessie” at Loch Ness (my nickname 
)
After our three-week vacation in Scotland I perfectly understand why Scottish mountaineers and climbers are considered to be particularly tough. They simply have no choice. If they really want to wait for constantly good or even sunny weather in the Highlands, they might just as well stay in bed. Summits as those of the Cuillin Hills on Skye are seldom seen, if at all. They usually hide behind clouds. Scotland is wild – and beautiful, provided that you can really look further than ten meters. On Skye we had, after all, a whole day with a weather that I would describe as warm like in early summer and sunny: 20 degrees Celsius, the sky almost without clouds, only in the Cuillins they kept up persistently. Since we had opted for a coastal walk, we promptly got sunburnt. We had left the sun milk in our cottage because we thought it was absolutely dispensable. When we told a Scotsman of our mishap the next day, he laughed heartily. “Sunburn on Skye? That’s a good headline for the newspaper.”
In the gallery below you can find some impressions from Scotland. Maybe they give a false picture of the weather that we had. This is simply because taking picture makes little sense and certainly no fun while it’s raining. Nonetheless we had much fun. Thanks to Scotland and the friendly Scots!
[See image gallery at blogs.dw.com] ]]>