Panoramas are dramatic, huge: they draw us in and stop us dead. If we are confident enough to leave the cocoon of our car or hotel, the landscape can shock and frighten. One moment the air has a clarity that the modern urbanite has never known, the next nothing is to be seen beyond our outstretched arms. The rain that was falling steadily is now running down the hillside in streams with such violence that make them impassable where a few moments before there were simple trickles. Rain turns to treacherous ice on contact with any firm surface. The beauty and fear, even fear conquered, leave us motionless in our summit fever.
It is a commonplace to say that humans lack these experiences in their modern lives. We talk of humbling experiences in the face of grandiose nature. But it is the connection not the disconnection that frightens, it is the knowledge that we are a part of this not apart from it.
Even in February a large percentage of my fellow travellers heading north to Inverness are single males with lithe bodies, little hair and aggressive footwear. These people will be out ‘on the hills’ all week getting their fix of this drug that holds our breath still. There is no guarantee of good weather on even one day this week, and there is a real guarantee of awkward and challenging weather on many days, but they will talk about, and more importantly remember for the rest of their lives, the good day when it comes.
And come it does for me in the Great Glen and again on the west coast. The huge skies that we associate with Wyoming or Zambia are there in our own country and we are made whole and happy for a short time longer.
I am flying north to look at hotels for a putative Scotland trip which we hope will see the light of day in 2012. I know from experience that this will not be easy. Put in the simplest terms Scotland does not have the infrastructure that you would expect from a country that is such a joy to behold. The roads can be narrow, poorly maintained and slow. The hotels are few and small and expensive.
I visit a number of these ‘country house hotels’. They are set in extraordinary scenery, in lovely buildings, and give high levels of service. They cost between £200 and £600 per night. ‘Once in a lifetime experience’ is a phrase that comes to many brochure writers’ minds. There seem to be too many places building their business by urging us never to return!
In the Highlands the great hotel is the Inverlochy Castle just outside Fort William. It has gained all the accolades from all the great travel magazines and remains unequalled in Scotland and far beyond. The title of great hotel is not easy to confer and rarely is it employed whole-heartedly outside the large cities which attract a sufficient clientele with deep enough pockets. But Inverlochy Castle is great, from beginning to end and there is an end on it.
Further north is the Torridon, a superb country house in the old style with very comfortable rooms and a welcoming attitude. A place where it is a true pleasure to stay. To the west is the Isle of Eriska, a magnificent estate on a private island with excellent dining, a spa and a golf course. There are the golf hotels, supreme among which is perhaps Gleneagles. And there are urban centres of excellence: the Balmoral in Edinburgh springs to mind.
Many English minds are doubtful of the joys of Scotland. They fear that the Scots will not like them, just because they are English. There are Scots whose embattled sense of historical injustice leads them to mistrust their bigger neighbour, and who can blame them? But that is not the Scottish way and it does not come easily even to those who feel it deeply. For the Scots are a warm-hearted secure nation who like the new and the unexpected and welcome the stranger with all the friendliness of the genuine mountain race.
For a taste of this hospitality try the excellent Culloden House Hotel just outside Inverness. It is well-appointed, well-run and happily located whether your preferred leisure activity is golfing on the Moray firth, sipping whisky on Speyside or strolling the battlefield of Culloden itself. Smaller, less luxurious but equally friendly hotels exist as well. The extraordinary Ceilidh Place in Ullapool is quirky and excellent and cheaper than one would expect. The food is very good indeed.
Food is an awkward subject in Scotland. It has improved immeasurably since I last visited this area and is now comparable to the rest of the United Kingdom. But that is not all good news. There are still too many hotels that smell, on entering, of food that was cooked centuries ago. Throw a bit of chalk dust into the mxture and they would feel uncomfortably like public school. There are still too many restaurants whose odour of fried food announces its presence well before you see it. It is a smell that portends death, appropriately enough, sickly in its sweetness and cloying in its greasiness. It will not disappear, as anyone who has enjoyed a fish and chip supper in a hatchback knows.
Yet there are a number of modernised gastro-units. Brasseries attached to purple and orange hotels, pubs trying to stand out in the high street or bistros appealing to the nouveau gastronome in all of us. They can be good but have an unhappy habit of lapsing into the faults of old. Portion sizes are such that after a week the unwary can feel bloated on a more or less continuous basis. There is too much ‘haggis mash’, too much ‘rich onion gravy’ and too many root vegetables.
The better restaurants have evolved from the past not revolted against it. The sea is a wonderful ally for those who wish to eat less richly. There is of course plenty of fabulous venison beef and lamb here as well and it is possible to eat in moderation. Try the Crinan Hotel at the end of the Crinan canal to see what can be done with skill and local produce and the good sense not to do too much to it.
