Glen Coe

Glen Coe is a volcanic trench with walls that make the A82 look like it got lost. It is beautiful in the way a lot of the Highlands are beautiful: it does not need you, and the weather will remind you. The 1692 massacre is the history everyone knows. The geology is older and less interested in clans.

If you stop

There are proper car parks. Use them. The verge is how people get hit. The Three Sisters viewpoint is the photograph; a short walk off the road is the actual glen. In winter the pass is a different country. In midges, July evenings, stand in the wind or stay in the car.

Fort William is down the road. Ballachulish. Glencoe village. None of this is Ullapool — you are in a different lump of Scotland — but it is the same idea we pour for: a place that is not a spa scent. Ben Nevis is the neighbour. The Nevis jar if you want the hill without the car park.