The exposed mountain scenery of Scotland’s west coast has been exported all over the world as the archetypal Highlands landscape.
Visitors flock to the West Highlands’ shortbread-tin destinations of Glen Coe and the Isle of Skye, where much of the hill country is rugged and weather-beaten, glorious to look at, but inaccessible to all but the fittest hill climbers.
Over in the East Highlands, the land is a little more gentle, more rhythmic and rural, but no less stunning. Here, where the lofty Cairngorms mountain range has five of the UK’s six highest mountains and a quarter of Scotland’s native forest, it’s every bit as wonderful as the west, yet it sees just a fraction of the visitors.
Scotland’s East Highlands were made for slowing down: beautiful
