Islay
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The fertile, largely treeless island of ISLAY (pronounced "eye-la") is famous for one thing - single malt whisky. The smoky, peaty, pungent quality of Islay whisky is unique, recognizable even to the untutored palate, and all seven of the island's distilleries will happily take visitors on a guided tour, ending with the customary complimentary tipple. Yet, despite the fame of its whiskies, Islay remains relatively undiscovered, much as Skye and Mull were some twenty years ago. Part of the reason may be the expense of the two-hour ferry journey from Kennacraig on Kintyre, or perhaps the relative paucity of luxury hotels or fancy restaurants. If you do make the effort, however, you'll be rewarded with a genuinely friendly welcome from islanders proud of their history, landscape and Gaelic culture. The long whale-shaped island of Jura is one of the wildest and most mountainous of the Inner Hebrides, its entire west coast uninhabited and inaccessible except to the dedicated walker.
In medieval times, Islay was the political centre of the Hebrides, with Finlaggan, near Port Askaig, the seat of the MacDonalds, Lords of the Isles. The picturesque, whitewashed villages you see on Islay today, however, date from the planned settlements founded by the Campbells in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Apart from whisky and solitude, the other great draw is the birdlife - there's a real possibility of spotting a golden eagle, or the rare crow-like chough, and no possibility at all of missing the scores of white-fronted and barnacle geese who winter here in their thousands. A good time to visit is in late May/early June, when the Islay Festival (Feis Ile; www.ileach.co.uk/festival), takes place, with whisky tasting, piping recitals, folk dancing and other events celebrating the island's Gaelic roots.
Public transport, in the form of buses and postbuses, will get you from one end of the island to the other, but it's as well to know that there is one solitary bus on a Sunday. The airport, which lies between Port Ellen and Bowmore, has regular flights to and from Glasgow.
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