Category: Scotland

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W Edinburgh hotel

A large building with a unique curved golden coloured roof design.

Each visit to Edinburgh I try to walk up Calton Hill. It is my favourite lookout over the city centre. Having not visited for nearly ten years it mostly looked the same. The skyline of Edinburgh city centre is dominated by the neoclassical Georgian stone terrace rooftops and chimneys. Standing out from this is the relatively new W Edinburgh hotel. A 12 story 5 star hotel in St James Square opened in November 2023. This striking modern architecture is a bold ribbon structure of metal ribbons that twist around the building. Depending on who you ask some locals many likening its shape to the poop emoji or walnut whip. 



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Dugald Stewart Monument

Black and white cityscape of Edinburgh, showcasing its historic architecture and skyline against a dramatic sky.

Walking up Calton Hill is a must each time I visit Edinburgh. It has the best views of the city in my opinion. Dugald Stewart Monument is a memorial to the Scottish philosopher Dugald Stewart. Made of stone it was completed in 1831. Having visited Edinburgh many times I wasn’t sure how much photography I would do. It was a lovely surprise to find that the City Observatory had been restored and open as a Collective, a visual arts charity. In previous years the observatory was closed and so this higher view point wasn’t accessible. You can actually see the wall surrounding the observatory in the foreground of this photograph. I did consider waiting until these two people moved off the wall. In the end I included them to give the image a sense of scale.

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The Devil’s Pulpit Waterfall

Unless you love photographing waterfalls, I would not recommend going here. It’s quite dangerous to get down into the gorge. It was the last evening of our short trip to Scotland, I realised we hadn’t seen many big or dramatic waterfalls. So this one is thanks to Flickr or was it Instagram? I forget exactly where I discovered the Devil’s Pulpit. Turned out to be less than half an hour away from where we were staying and not too much of a detour. When we visited, there was no easy places to park on either the B834 or the A809 roads. After a few back and forths we found somewhere to park and walked into the woods around Finnich Glen. This is Carnock Burn. There’s a footpath on the south side of the gorge. Then a very steep, slippery ancient stone steps called Jacob’s Ladder. There wasn’t a rope there when we went but it could do with one, especially on a rainy day. Taken with a tripod and the camera zoomed in to create this perspective. Finnich Glen isn’t anywhere near as narrow as it looks in this photograph.

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Looking south from Ben Lomond

After a few hours of walking we made it to the summit of Ben Lomond at 974 metres above sea level. This was the view looking back south, towards the town of Balloch and the direction we had walked from. Despite this happening in April there was still a few patches of snow on the ground, as you can see in the foreground. I typically don’t include people in my photographs. This was an exception as having a person in this photograph gives it scale. This is also my best friend makes the picture more special to me personally. It was surprising to see so many small islands on the loch. From the shores of Loch Lomond I had assumed there was three or four islands. Clearly not from this angle. The big island in the foreground is Inchonaig. The furthest away, on the right is Inchmurrin which points towards the Alexandra / Balloch area.