Experience the best of Stornoway

Stornoway is the largest town in the Outer Hebrides, set around a sheltered harbour on the east coast of the Isle of Lewis. Fishing boats and ferries use the quay, and the grounds of Lews Castle, a Victorian mansion, hold woods and a museum of island history. Gaelic is widely spoken, and signs and conversations move between it and English.

To the west, the Callanish Standing Stones form a cross-shaped circle nearly five thousand years old, set on a ridge above a sea loch. Nearby are the Carloway broch, an Iron Age tower, and the restored blackhouses of Gearrannan. The Butt of Lewis lighthouse marks the northern tip, and the Uig sands, where the twelfth-century Lewis chessmen were found, stretch to the south-west.

Stornoway black pudding, sold across Scotland, is the town's famous product, and scallops, langoustines and fresh haddock come off the boats. Harris tweed is woven on looms in croft sheds across the island. The wind blows hard off the Atlantic, summer light lasts until late, and the ferry from Ullapool on the mainland docks at the town.