Scotland Travel & Tourism

One of the greatest things about visiting anywhere in Europe is touring through the continent’s history. Scotland is no exception. With its vast array of castles, settlements, and other historical landmarks, you can make an entire journey of the country and never leave the Middle Ages.

People have lived in Scotland for nearly thirteen-thousand years, ever since it formed from a variety of glaciations and other natural phenomena. The green soil and the temperate, oceanic climate made it ample territory for a wide diversity of flora and fauna, and an ideal place to live year-round.

For those wishing to explore at the remnants of a truly Ancient Scotland, you need to head up to Mainland on Scotland’s Orkney Islands, nestled comfortable between the North and Norwegian Seas. There at the sites of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar, you will be transported back to Scotland’s Neolithic Period. At Skara Brae, which is located on the Bay of Skaill on the Western short of Mainland, you can view a well-preserved stone-built settlement and see what it would have been like to live 5,000 years past.

Further in past the shore, you will happen upon the unique and monolithic Standing Stones of Stenness. As mysterious as they are striking, the Stones jut out from the landscape like ancient landmarks, identifying the stopping points of a time nearly since forgotten. Experts believe the stones were used for some kind of religious purpose, but their ultimate ‘meaning’ is yet unknown. The same goes for the Ring of Brodgar, which is also on Mainland, Orkney, and constructed of stones similar to those of Stenness. Brodgar reminds the visitor of Stonehenge, and though they’re more humble than the stones found at Stonehenge, they are just as compelling.

Other sites, like Kilmartin Glen in Argyll or Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, likewise stand as a testaments to Scotland’s long and mysterious history. And like the rest of Scotland’s more natural structures, their beauty continues to be untouched by time.