0:00:03 > 0:00:10200 years ago, the landscape of Scotland was regarded as hostile and dangerous.
0:00:10 > 0:00:17This was a place to avoid, a land where famine and poverty worked hand in hand with armed rebellion.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20But then something remarkable happened -
0:00:20 > 0:00:24Scotland was reinvented as a place to visit.
0:00:24 > 0:00:28Landscapes that once seemed threatening suddenly had an appeal
0:00:28 > 0:00:32for a new breed of traveller - the tourist.
0:00:32 > 0:00:37To help meet the needs of these new visitors, special guidebooks began to appear,
0:00:37 > 0:00:44and this is perhaps the most influential of them all - Black's Picturesque Guide to Scotland.
0:00:44 > 0:00:50Published in 1840 by Charles and Adam Black, it contains various itineraries that allowed
0:00:50 > 0:00:58the tourist, really for the very first time, to explore the exotic and romantic landscapes of Scotland.
0:01:00 > 0:01:06My own well-thumbed copy of Black's Guide has been in my family for generations.
0:01:06 > 0:01:11It was always in the glove compartment of my father's car when we went on holiday
0:01:11 > 0:01:17and now it's inspired me to make six journeys of my own.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20Letting Black's guide me, I want to retrace the steps of the early tourists,
0:01:20 > 0:01:26to find out how Scotland became a jewel in the crown of tourist destinations.
0:01:26 > 0:01:32On my way, I'll meet some extraordinary characters and visit some truly world-class locations.
0:01:32 > 0:01:38On my first journey I'm in search of the romantic ideal - travelling to places that inspired
0:01:38 > 0:01:44tourists as well as artists, musicians and writers with the magic of Scotland's unique landscapes.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00My first excursion takes me into the heart of the Trossachs,
0:02:00 > 0:02:03where I hope to unlock the area's romantic secrets
0:02:03 > 0:02:11before travelling North and West to Oban, Mull, Iona and on to the fabled Island of Staffa.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19This is Callander, where for the last two centuries, travellers have departed
0:02:19 > 0:02:27to visit Scotland's earliest tourist destination, the romantic heartland of Loch Katrine and the Trossachs.
0:02:27 > 0:02:32Now according to my copy of Black's, "Callander offers the tourist a convenient centre from which
0:02:32 > 0:02:37"to make various excursions, particularly to the Trossachs."
0:02:37 > 0:02:40Now this is what's brilliant about using the old guide,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43because it shows what's changed and what stays the same.
0:02:43 > 0:02:49There's a lovely drawing of the old Dreadnought Hotel which is still here, with a coach load of Victorian
0:02:49 > 0:02:53tourists about to leave on just such an excursion, pretty much
0:02:53 > 0:02:59as they continue to do today, although sadly, of course, without the horses.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02To have a more authentic experience of early travel
0:03:02 > 0:03:09I've turned my back on the diesel coach and boarded this fantastic horse-drawn brougham carriage,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13exactly the sort of conveyance the Victorian tourists would have used.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16What better way to be taken up the Trossachs?
0:03:19 > 0:03:24Beautiful Loch Katrine and the Trossachs has been a must-see tourist destination
0:03:24 > 0:03:26for the last 200 years, and is,
0:03:26 > 0:03:33without doubt, the most significant location in the whole story of Scottish tourism.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38Black's Guide gives a clue to what started the great rush to the Trossachs.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41The pages are scattered with literary quotes and nearly all or them
0:03:41 > 0:03:49from the pen of one man - Sir Walter Scott, literary virtuoso and wordsmith wizard of the North.
0:03:52 > 0:04:01Born in 1771, Sir Walter Scott became a hugely prolific and influential historical novelist.
0:04:01 > 0:04:08In 1810 he wrote The Lady Of The Lake, an epic poem set right here in the Trossachs.
0:04:08 > 0:04:14The poem became a runaway bestseller, but its success had unforeseen consequences.
0:04:14 > 0:04:20To find out more, I'm meeting up with Canadian historian and Scott aficionado, Kevin James.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24Kevin, the poem was enormously influential, was it not?
0:04:24 > 0:04:26It was. It was published in 1810
0:04:26 > 0:04:30and within the first 8 months, some 25,000 copies were sold.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33Within a few years this place had become popularised as a district
0:04:33 > 0:04:38that had been so magnificently described by Scott in The Lady Of The Lake.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41So why were people coming here? What were they expecting to see?
0:04:41 > 0:04:45They were expecting to see, I think, a lot of the sights that he described, and they were expecting
0:04:45 > 0:04:51also to kind of inhabit the world, however fantastical, that the poem laid out.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54And what was the poem actually about? What was the story of the poem?
0:04:54 > 0:04:59Well, it was a very romantic and fantastical story about an ethereal
0:04:59 > 0:05:04beauty who inhabited this region, and it was about lovers, rival lovers.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09It was about romance, it was about violence and a King in disguise.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11And it really did bring in the tourists?
0:05:11 > 0:05:16It did - it brought in a 500% increase in tourists in the first year alone.
0:05:16 > 0:05:20So in some ways the tourists who were coming here weren't coming to see the landscape,
0:05:20 > 0:05:25they were coming to see a literary landscape, a kind of a fantasy landscape that Scott had created.
0:05:25 > 0:05:26I think that's very true.
0:05:28 > 0:05:34Because Scott's poem was written with real locations in mind, it became a sort of guide to the area,
0:05:34 > 0:05:41and my copy of Black's exploits this, quoting verses that lead the literary tourist onward.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43To discover for myself how the places mentioned in the poem
0:05:43 > 0:05:51correspond with the landscape, I'm leaving Kevin James to continue my Trossachs journey on foot.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55Now Scott describes Loch Katrine as a sort of
0:05:55 > 0:06:00enchanted never-never land, far from the realities of the modern world.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03Hidden away, it was only possible to reach the loch
0:06:03 > 0:06:09by means of a sort of ladder made of heather roots and branches.
0:06:09 > 0:06:15But of course there is no such ladder, there never was, and access
0:06:15 > 0:06:22to the Loch has always been pretty straightforward, so Scott definitely used poetic licence here, and when
0:06:22 > 0:06:29the modern tourist arrives at Loch Katrine, the scene isn't quite the tranquil one depicted by Scott.
0:06:29 > 0:06:35Perhaps it takes the imagination and the eyes of a poet to see the magical realm he described.
0:06:38 > 0:06:42"Loch Katrine in all its extent Bursts upon the view,
0:06:42 > 0:06:47"With promontory, creek and bay And Islands that in purpled bright
0:06:47 > 0:06:53"Float amid the livelier light, And mountains that like giants stand,
0:06:53 > 0:06:55"To sentinel enchanted land."
0:07:01 > 0:07:04To find out why Scott and my guidebook
0:07:04 > 0:07:08felt the need to exaggerate the scenic qualities of the landscape,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12I've come aboard the aptly named steamer Sir Walter Scott, which
0:07:12 > 0:07:17for a century has been the most popular way to explore Loch Katrine.
0:07:17 > 0:07:22Douglas Gifford has written about the enduring appeal of Scottish scenery and its relationship
0:07:22 > 0:07:29to Romanticism, a revolutionary artistic movement that swept Europe in the 19th century.
0:07:29 > 0:07:33Douglas, what were the basic principles of Romanticism?
0:07:33 > 0:07:37It's nothing about being romantic, these are not love stories we're talking about.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40Romanticism had quite a precise meaning - what was that?
0:07:40 > 0:07:45I'm sure you're right to say two different meanings for romantic.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48You know, we're so used to the soppy one,
0:07:48 > 0:07:51whereas Romantic was quite,
0:07:51 > 0:07:55not a hard word, but it was a very, very ambitious word in these times.
0:07:55 > 0:08:02Suddenly the poets and the painters and the thinkers are switching on to a new tack, that maybe they'd
0:08:02 > 0:08:09been looking in the wrong place into prudence and reason and orderliness and society, and instead they should
0:08:09 > 0:08:13be taking inspiration from the wilder places, the more
0:08:13 > 0:08:18extreme imaginative thoughts, the mysteries of the human mind as well.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23So in that sense Romanticism is the rediscovery both...
0:08:23 > 0:08:26in a sense, you could say the rediscovery of another kind of God,
0:08:26 > 0:08:31of another kind of morality, another kind of aesthetics, and it stands everything on its head.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37Suddenly you're pushing people out into these places of history
0:08:37 > 0:08:40and places that are wild and natural and...
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Places like Scotland, places like Loch Katrine?
0:08:43 > 0:08:48Exactly so, exactly so. Scotland's a suitable candidate for treatment by Romanticism, yes.
0:08:52 > 0:08:56Romanticism had a profound influence on the way people responded
0:08:56 > 0:09:00to landscape, and Scott's writing helped focus these ideas,
0:09:00 > 0:09:06leading tourists to see what they expected to see - the Romantic ideal.
0:09:07 > 0:09:15Painters were also inspired to produce images of an idealised Trossachs, making wee Ben Venue,
0:09:15 > 0:09:22at just 2,300 feet, look more like an Alpine peak, and Loch Katrine resemble an Italian lake.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27The reason why artists transformed landscapes like this had to do with
0:09:27 > 0:09:33ways of seeing the world, and to do that required certain techniques.
0:09:33 > 0:09:38Some artists believe that to truly appreciate a scene, you first had to
0:09:38 > 0:09:45frame it and then accentuate its features artificially to truly see the essential,
0:09:45 > 0:09:51romantic, picturesque qualities in what they were looking at, and to do that, they used this special
0:09:51 > 0:09:55dark piece of glass - a Claude glass - it's like a dark mirror.
0:09:55 > 0:10:01The idea of the Claude glass was to hold it up and to look at the view
0:10:01 > 0:10:05you wanted to appreciate as a reflection over your shoulder.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10Now this revealed the essential romantic picturesque qualities
0:10:10 > 0:10:14of the scene that you couldn't see with the naked eye, as it were.
0:10:14 > 0:10:16Bizarre.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23Views that had a calming effect on tourists were called "picturesque",
0:10:23 > 0:10:27while more dramatic landscape was called "sublime".
0:10:27 > 0:10:29In the 18th century the word "sublime"
0:10:29 > 0:10:37had a quite precise meaning - it meant to be awe-inspired by the wild, untamed forces of nature.
0:10:37 > 0:10:44One of Scotland's earliest tourists and devotee of sublime beauty was the traveller Sarah Murray.
0:10:44 > 0:10:51In 1796, she came to the Trossachs and wrote breathlessly about the beauties of Loch Katrine.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54"The awefulness, the solemnity and the sublimity of the scene
0:10:54 > 0:10:59"is beyond, far beyond description, either of the pen or pencil.
0:10:59 > 0:11:05"Nothing but the eye can convey to the mind such scenery."
0:11:05 > 0:11:07I love Sarah Murray.
0:11:07 > 0:11:12A widow in her early 50s, she spent three months rattling around Scotland
0:11:12 > 0:11:17searching for the sublime, which for her usually meant finding a waterfall somewhere.
0:11:19 > 0:11:27In 1799 she published a book, A Companion And Useful Guide To The Beauties Of Scotland.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32Full of helpful tips and advice on all things Scottish, Sarah urged the would-be tourist,
0:11:32 > 0:11:38"to provide yourself with a strong, roomy carriage and have the springs well corded.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43"Take with you linchpins and four shackles, a hammer and some straps."
0:11:43 > 0:11:46Sounds like the tourist was in for a bumpy ride.
0:11:52 > 0:11:57Continuing my journey through the Trossachs, I follow the road as it leaves Loch Katrine,
0:11:57 > 0:12:03heads overland and down to the harbour at Inversnaid, nestling on the shores of Loch Lomond.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08For many years, Inversnaid was a significant tourist hub.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13According to Black's guidebook, steamers left here for destinations north and south
0:12:13 > 0:12:19or west, crossing the loch and on to the coach road to Oban, which is where I'm heading next.
0:12:19 > 0:12:23Sadly, such a bewildering choice of routes is a thing of the past,
0:12:23 > 0:12:27and the loch can no longer boast of regular steamer links.
0:12:27 > 0:12:34However, there is now a faster, more efficient and exciting way of getting to Oban - by sea plane.
0:12:37 > 0:12:43For a country with a disproportionately long coastline, and hundreds of inland lochs,
0:12:43 > 0:12:48I've often wondered why Scotland never really capitalised on its sea plane potential.
0:12:48 > 0:12:54But recently a Scottish-based company is rectifying this with a network of air routes.
0:12:57 > 0:13:02My flight today from Loch Lomond to Oban takes less than 20 minutes.
0:13:02 > 0:13:07Back in the days of Black's guidebook, this journey was a two-day coach ride.
0:13:09 > 0:13:15This is absolutely exhilarating. What better way to see the West Coast of Scotland than by sea plane?
0:13:15 > 0:13:21It's all down there - mountains, lochs, rivers,
0:13:21 > 0:13:26glens, spread out like a map. It's absolutely magnificent.
0:13:26 > 0:13:28It's quite awe-inspiring.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30It's actually quite sublime.
0:13:32 > 0:13:38Had Sarah Murray been able to exchange her carriage for this sea plane ride, I'm sure she
0:13:38 > 0:13:42would have been more than thrilled as we skim across the waters of Oban Bay.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57In Victorian times, Oban was the Charing Cross of the West Coast,
0:13:57 > 0:14:01the centre of an integrated transport system
0:14:01 > 0:14:05that connected steamers, trains, carriages and charabancs
0:14:05 > 0:14:12to places as far afield as Glasgow, Fort William, Stornoway and Orkney.
0:14:12 > 0:14:18A German tourist arriving at this busy port in 1858 provides a rather early example of his nation's
0:14:18 > 0:14:21unfortunate desire always to be first.
0:14:21 > 0:14:27Now we all know that Germans hate standing in queues and absolutely hate being last, and the same was
0:14:27 > 0:14:33true back then, so when the German tourist Theodor Fontane disembarked from a steamer and
0:14:33 > 0:14:40saw a large group of people moving towards the hotel, all his instincts told him to hurry on ahead.
0:14:43 > 0:14:47Fontane later described how he and his friend trotted along the quay
0:14:47 > 0:14:54in a sort of race with a number of Scots to secure accommodation at the Caledonian Hotel.
0:14:54 > 0:14:59In their unseemly haste, the Germans got to the hotel first,
0:14:59 > 0:15:03but their efforts were all in vain - it was fully booked.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06If only they'd made a reservation, they were told.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09A rare example of poor German planning.
0:15:14 > 0:15:21Oban is still a very busy place, but the steamers that once shuttled back and forth have been replaced
0:15:21 > 0:15:27by the ubiquitous CalMac ferries, taking islanders and tourists to the Hebrides.
0:15:27 > 0:15:32But the golden age lives on in the shape of the lovely old paddle steamer Waverley.
0:15:32 > 0:15:36I'm boarding her to sail to the Island of Mull.
0:15:40 > 0:15:45In Victorian times, paddle steamers were the life blood of the West Coast.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50Without them, mass tourism would have been impossible.
0:15:50 > 0:15:56On board the Waverley, the world's last ocean-going paddle steamer, you can still get a glimpse of the
0:15:56 > 0:16:02old magic, a time when Macbrayne steamers were famed for their luxury.
0:16:02 > 0:16:08Orchestras played while silver service waiters fawned over diners in the restaurant.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12There was a book stall, fruit stall, post office, and for those in need
0:16:12 > 0:16:17of some remedial follicle care, there was even a hairdressing salon.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20This was the modern world, and the Industrial Revolution
0:16:20 > 0:16:26that made it all possible also created the modern tourist.
0:16:26 > 0:16:31Enterprising Victorians were quick to see the potential of mass transportation,
0:16:31 > 0:16:38and one man in particular seized the opportunities to become an unlikely tourist innovator.
0:16:38 > 0:16:43To find out more, I've come below deck to meet the travel historian Nikki MacLeod.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Nikki, it seems to me that the Industrial Revolution was a
0:16:46 > 0:16:50crucial factor in the development of tourism in Scotland.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54Here we are on the Waverley, an example of the early steam power that drew people to the area,
0:16:54 > 0:17:00but as I understand it, there were some key personalities that latched onto the idea that this
0:17:00 > 0:17:04new technology could be harnessed to bring people to the Highlands.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07Exactly, and the most famous of those was Thomas Cook,
0:17:07 > 0:17:08now a household name.
0:17:08 > 0:17:15Thomas Cook was one of the very early pioneers, one of the first people to actually take
0:17:15 > 0:17:23those transportation modes and sort of package them together into easy itineraries for people to follow.
0:17:23 > 0:17:27Up until then, the only people who could really have afforded to take a trip to Scotland
0:17:27 > 0:17:32were those with the money or the leisure to make what was a difficult journey.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Remember at this time, there was no direct rail link between England and Scotland.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39What kind of character was Cook?
0:17:39 > 0:17:45He was a Baptist and a very, very keen worker for the Temperance Movement.
0:17:45 > 0:17:52And much of the impetus behind arranging these excursions was the idea that if you provided rational
0:17:52 > 0:17:58improving entertainments for people, it would keep them away from the gin palace.
0:17:58 > 0:18:00Now as I understand it, Thomas Cook was someone with
0:18:00 > 0:18:05a social conscience, and he brought that attitude into the Highlands with his tourists.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07Yes, in fact it was really in Iona.
0:18:07 > 0:18:13He was horrified at the poverty he found on the island, and he set up there a fund
0:18:13 > 0:18:19which his tourists subscribed to year upon year, and in a number of years they'd actually raised enough money
0:18:19 > 0:18:25to buy the islanders a fleet of fishing vessels, 24 fishing vessels in fact, one of which
0:18:25 > 0:18:31the islanders named The Thomas Cook in gratitude, really, to their benefactor.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35So not only did he invent the package tour, he invented tourism with a conscience?
0:18:35 > 0:18:38Exactly, yes, a very influential figure.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42History is nothing if not ironic.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48For most early tourists, including those on Cook's Tartan Tours, coming to Scotland was an escape
0:18:48 > 0:18:53from the new industrial cities of 19th-century Britain, which were the
0:18:53 > 0:18:57very antithesis of the sublime they were looking for in nature.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01But to reach the romantic landscapes of Scotland, tourists increasingly depended
0:19:01 > 0:19:09on inventions like the steam engine, a potent symbol of the industrial world they wanted to leave behind.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18This is Tobermory on the Isle of Mull - in my opinion,
0:19:18 > 0:19:23the prettiest harbour in Scotland, but then I'm biased - I have family here.
0:19:23 > 0:19:28Black's guidebook sings the town's praises too, but can't refrain from
0:19:28 > 0:19:34seeing the place as if it was somewhere else, describing it like a fishing village in Italy.
0:19:34 > 0:19:38But why would Black's want to compare Mull with Italy?
0:19:38 > 0:19:41Because, let's face it, they're pretty dissimilar.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45Well, the answer reveals a kind of cultural snobbery.
0:19:47 > 0:19:52In the 18th and 19th centuries, aristocrats on the Grand Tour
0:19:52 > 0:19:56travelled to Italy to absorb the culture of classical Rome.
0:19:56 > 0:20:00Anything Italian, therefore, acquired an added value.
0:20:00 > 0:20:07By extension, anything that looked Italian was also worthy of consideration, even here on Mull.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10This no doubt explains why Black's guidebook
0:20:10 > 0:20:16makes the unlikely comparison of the island's Ben More with Mount Vesuvius.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23I've come to the west of the island to visit a place forever bound up
0:20:23 > 0:20:28with ideas of tragedy, romance and the awful power of nature.
0:20:28 > 0:20:35This is Gribun, lying beneath the forbidding cliffs of Ben More, the wildest mountain on Mull.
0:20:37 > 0:20:45The story concerns an event that took place some 200 years ago and features this enormous boulder.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48Now according to local legend, it was a
0:20:48 > 0:20:55"dark and stormy night" as they say, and a young couple were consummating their marriage in their new home.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59They were in a state of nuptial bliss when high on the mountain,
0:20:59 > 0:21:05this enormous boulder was dislodged by torrential rain.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11With a furious roar, the boulder smashed its way down the
0:21:11 > 0:21:16mountainside, landing on the young couple's cottage, killing them both.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20And this is where they still lie, crushed beneath the boulder
0:21:20 > 0:21:23that destroyed their home and their hopes.
0:21:23 > 0:21:27Ever since it's been known as Tragedy Rock.
0:21:27 > 0:21:35Now I'm a big fan of Mull and despite the salutary tale of Tragedy Rock, even felt brave enough
0:21:35 > 0:21:40to get married here, which I suppose is endorsement of a kind for the island's romantic charms.
0:21:40 > 0:21:47But not every visitor has been quite so well disposed towards Mull's romantic beauty and allure.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54John McCulloch, a 19th-century geologist
0:21:54 > 0:21:59and friend of Sir Walter Scott, whinged on about almost everything.
0:21:59 > 0:22:07"Mull is a detestable land, trackless and repulsive, rude without beauty, stormy and dreary."
0:22:07 > 0:22:12Doctor Johnson, the great man of letters, was similarly unmoved.
0:22:12 > 0:22:17"It is natural in traversing this gloom of desolation
0:22:17 > 0:22:23"to enquire whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face."
0:22:23 > 0:22:26There wasn't an ounce of sensibility in either of these men.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30Their eyes and minds were entirely closed to romantic ideas of the
0:22:30 > 0:22:34sublime and the power of nature, unlike the wonderful Sarah Murray,
0:22:34 > 0:22:40who wrote rapturously about the magnificent scenery and her first view of Iona.
0:22:42 > 0:22:48"My eyes were fixed on a view so wild and yet so sublime.
0:22:48 > 0:22:55"Huge fantastical rocks of fine red granite standing and lying in every imaginable form,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58"and then the ruins of the Abbey that made the mind reflect
0:22:58 > 0:23:01"on how frail and uncertain is human greatness."
0:23:03 > 0:23:07Iona Abbey was restored in the 1920s and 1930s,
0:23:07 > 0:23:12but when Sarah Murray came here, the great ecclesiastical buildings were in ruins.
0:23:12 > 0:23:17Now if anything, this made them even more attractive to the Victorian tourists who came after her.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22There was something exquisitely romantic about the shattered remains of a lost world,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25and walking amongst the broken stones,
0:23:25 > 0:23:30some tourists felt close to the Celtic twilight of myth and legend.
0:23:33 > 0:23:39They were also moved by the idea of Iona as the cradle of Celtic Christianity.
0:23:39 > 0:23:451600 years ago, St Columba arrived from Ireland, bringing the faith to the heathen.
0:23:45 > 0:23:50This struck a chord with Victorians, who were inclined to describe the
0:23:50 > 0:23:55ambitions of the British Empire as "illuminating the darkness".
0:23:55 > 0:24:02Iona, like Imperial Britain, was a civilising beacon in a vast sea of superstition and ignorance.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06High-minded ideas like this brought Thomas Cook to the Island.
0:24:06 > 0:24:11Standing in the ruins, he educated his tourists about the strength of religion,
0:24:11 > 0:24:16the evils of drink, and the frailty of mankind.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21But Cook's doctrine of temperance wasn't to everyone's taste.
0:24:21 > 0:24:28There was another wilder destination to head for, one that spoke to the seeker of the Romantic ideal.
0:24:30 > 0:24:37In 1796 Sarah Murray braved the elements, and made the pilgrimage to visit the most dramatic
0:24:37 > 0:24:43and sublime spectacle on Scotland's West Coast - the island of Staffa.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50Getting to Staffa has always been something of an adventure.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55The island lies eight miles off the west coast of Mull, and even on a calm day,
0:24:55 > 0:25:01the swell and the tides make for a bumpy and exciting crossing.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04But why would a small uninhabited lump of rock lying in the
0:25:04 > 0:25:09turbulent North Atlantic become a mecca for early tourists?
0:25:09 > 0:25:16Well, the answer goes right to the heart of the Romantic ideal and the Romantic way of seeing the world.
0:25:16 > 0:25:24In 1762, James Macpherson published what he claimed were fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry.
0:25:24 > 0:25:32Macpherson said they'd been composed centuries earlier by the blind bard Ossian, who celebrated the deeds of
0:25:32 > 0:25:38Fingal, a bold hero who lived in the Celtic twilight of a pre-Christian world.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41MUSIC: "Fingal's Cave" Overture by Felix Mendelssohn
0:25:42 > 0:25:47In 1772, just 10 years after the publication of the Ossian poems,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51the explorer James Banks of the Royal Society
0:25:51 > 0:26:00was forced to shelter from a storm and discovered the island of Staffa and its unique and marvellous cave.
0:26:00 > 0:26:05Although Banks was a scientist, he was greatly influenced by the romantic cult that had
0:26:05 > 0:26:12grown up around Ossian's poems, and named the great cave Fingal's Cave, and you can see why.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17It's a place of truly heroic proportions.
0:26:22 > 0:26:29The cave is 75 metres long and the roof rises 20 metres above my head, seemingly supported by hundreds of
0:26:29 > 0:26:35angular basalt columns, reminding me of the vault of a Gothic cathedral.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38It's an inspiring place and sums up everything the early
0:26:38 > 0:26:46Romantic tourist was looking for - wild, remote, spectacular and full of heroic associations.
0:26:46 > 0:26:53When Sarah Murray came here in 1796, she could hardly contain herself.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57"The atmosphere of the deity filled my soul.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01"I was lost in wonder, gratitude and praise.
0:27:01 > 0:27:07"Never shall I forget the sublime, heaven-like sensations with which Fingal's Cave inspired me.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10"I was in ecstasy."
0:27:12 > 0:27:16Just about everyone who considered themselves to be someone
0:27:16 > 0:27:20made the difficult journey to this improbable rock in the Atlantic.
0:27:20 > 0:27:29Artists, writers, composers and musicians came to gape in awe at the sublime power of nature.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35The poets Wordsworth and Keats came.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37Sir Walter Scott came.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42So too did the early French science fiction writer Jules Verne.
0:27:42 > 0:27:44Robert Louis Stevenson made the journey.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49So too did the young Queen Victoria, who thrilled at the sound
0:27:49 > 0:27:52of the National Anthem played in Fingal's Cave.
0:27:52 > 0:27:58But perhaps most famously, the 20-year-old composer Felix Mendelssohn
0:27:58 > 0:28:06wrote his celebrated Hebrides Overture after a stormy but inspiring visit in 1829.
0:28:06 > 0:28:11Mendelssohn's overture is the first piece of classical music I remember as a child.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14Listening to it during school assembly, we were encouraged to
0:28:14 > 0:28:19let our imaginations wander to the Hebrides, and in my mind's eye
0:28:19 > 0:28:25I could see the bow of a boat pushing its way through a green sea towards an enchanted Island.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Now that's what I call a romantic image, and
0:28:28 > 0:28:34that's why people still come here searching for the romantic ideal.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39My next Grand Tour takes me in search of the sporting life,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43as I travel from Perthshire to Royal Deeside.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:28:52 > 0:28:55E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk