The Romantic Ideal Grand Tours of Scotland


The Romantic Ideal

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200 years ago, the landscape of Scotland was regarded as hostile and dangerous.

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This was a place to avoid, a land where famine and poverty worked hand in hand with armed rebellion.

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But then something remarkable happened -

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Scotland was reinvented as a place to visit.

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Landscapes that once seemed threatening suddenly had an appeal

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for a new breed of traveller - the tourist.

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To help meet the needs of these new visitors, special guidebooks began to appear,

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and this is perhaps the most influential of them all - Black's Picturesque Guide to Scotland.

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Published in 1840 by Charles and Adam Black, it contains various itineraries that allowed

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the tourist, really for the very first time, to explore the exotic and romantic landscapes of Scotland.

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My own well-thumbed copy of Black's Guide has been in my family for generations.

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It was always in the glove compartment of my father's car when we went on holiday

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and now it's inspired me to make six journeys of my own.

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Letting Black's guide me, I want to retrace the steps of the early tourists,

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to find out how Scotland became a jewel in the crown of tourist destinations.

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On my way, I'll meet some extraordinary characters and visit some truly world-class locations.

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On my first journey I'm in search of the romantic ideal - travelling to places that inspired

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tourists as well as artists, musicians and writers with the magic of Scotland's unique landscapes.

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My first excursion takes me into the heart of the Trossachs,

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where I hope to unlock the area's romantic secrets

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before travelling North and West to Oban, Mull, Iona and on to the fabled Island of Staffa.

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This is Callander, where for the last two centuries, travellers have departed

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to visit Scotland's earliest tourist destination, the romantic heartland of Loch Katrine and the Trossachs.

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Now according to my copy of Black's, "Callander offers the tourist a convenient centre from which

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"to make various excursions, particularly to the Trossachs."

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Now this is what's brilliant about using the old guide,

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because it shows what's changed and what stays the same.

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There's a lovely drawing of the old Dreadnought Hotel which is still here, with a coach load of Victorian

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tourists about to leave on just such an excursion, pretty much

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as they continue to do today, although sadly, of course, without the horses.

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To have a more authentic experience of early travel

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I've turned my back on the diesel coach and boarded this fantastic horse-drawn brougham carriage,

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exactly the sort of conveyance the Victorian tourists would have used.

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What better way to be taken up the Trossachs?

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Beautiful Loch Katrine and the Trossachs has been a must-see tourist destination

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for the last 200 years, and is,

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without doubt, the most significant location in the whole story of Scottish tourism.

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Black's Guide gives a clue to what started the great rush to the Trossachs.

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The pages are scattered with literary quotes and nearly all or them

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from the pen of one man - Sir Walter Scott, literary virtuoso and wordsmith wizard of the North.

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Born in 1771, Sir Walter Scott became a hugely prolific and influential historical novelist.

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In 1810 he wrote The Lady Of The Lake, an epic poem set right here in the Trossachs.

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The poem became a runaway bestseller, but its success had unforeseen consequences.

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To find out more, I'm meeting up with Canadian historian and Scott aficionado, Kevin James.

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Kevin, the poem was enormously influential, was it not?

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It was. It was published in 1810

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and within the first 8 months, some 25,000 copies were sold.

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Within a few years this place had become popularised as a district

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that had been so magnificently described by Scott in The Lady Of The Lake.

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So why were people coming here? What were they expecting to see?

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They were expecting to see, I think, a lot of the sights that he described, and they were expecting

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also to kind of inhabit the world, however fantastical, that the poem laid out.

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And what was the poem actually about? What was the story of the poem?

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Well, it was a very romantic and fantastical story about an ethereal

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beauty who inhabited this region, and it was about lovers, rival lovers.

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It was about romance, it was about violence and a King in disguise.

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And it really did bring in the tourists?

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It did - it brought in a 500% increase in tourists in the first year alone.

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So in some ways the tourists who were coming here weren't coming to see the landscape,

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they were coming to see a literary landscape, a kind of a fantasy landscape that Scott had created.

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I think that's very true.

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Because Scott's poem was written with real locations in mind, it became a sort of guide to the area,

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and my copy of Black's exploits this, quoting verses that lead the literary tourist onward.

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To discover for myself how the places mentioned in the poem

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correspond with the landscape, I'm leaving Kevin James to continue my Trossachs journey on foot.

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Now Scott describes Loch Katrine as a sort of

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enchanted never-never land, far from the realities of the modern world.

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Hidden away, it was only possible to reach the loch

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by means of a sort of ladder made of heather roots and branches.

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But of course there is no such ladder, there never was, and access

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to the Loch has always been pretty straightforward, so Scott definitely used poetic licence here, and when

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the modern tourist arrives at Loch Katrine, the scene isn't quite the tranquil one depicted by Scott.

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Perhaps it takes the imagination and the eyes of a poet to see the magical realm he described.

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"Loch Katrine in all its extent Bursts upon the view,

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"With promontory, creek and bay And Islands that in purpled bright

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"Float amid the livelier light, And mountains that like giants stand,

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"To sentinel enchanted land."

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To find out why Scott and my guidebook

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felt the need to exaggerate the scenic qualities of the landscape,

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I've come aboard the aptly named steamer Sir Walter Scott, which

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for a century has been the most popular way to explore Loch Katrine.

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Douglas Gifford has written about the enduring appeal of Scottish scenery and its relationship

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to Romanticism, a revolutionary artistic movement that swept Europe in the 19th century.

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Douglas, what were the basic principles of Romanticism?

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It's nothing about being romantic, these are not love stories we're talking about.

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Romanticism had quite a precise meaning - what was that?

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I'm sure you're right to say two different meanings for romantic.

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You know, we're so used to the soppy one,

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whereas Romantic was quite,

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not a hard word, but it was a very, very ambitious word in these times.

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Suddenly the poets and the painters and the thinkers are switching on to a new tack, that maybe they'd

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been looking in the wrong place into prudence and reason and orderliness and society, and instead they should

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be taking inspiration from the wilder places, the more

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extreme imaginative thoughts, the mysteries of the human mind as well.

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So in that sense Romanticism is the rediscovery both...

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in a sense, you could say the rediscovery of another kind of God,

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of another kind of morality, another kind of aesthetics, and it stands everything on its head.

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Suddenly you're pushing people out into these places of history

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and places that are wild and natural and...

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Places like Scotland, places like Loch Katrine?

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Exactly so, exactly so. Scotland's a suitable candidate for treatment by Romanticism, yes.

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Romanticism had a profound influence on the way people responded

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to landscape, and Scott's writing helped focus these ideas,

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leading tourists to see what they expected to see - the Romantic ideal.

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Painters were also inspired to produce images of an idealised Trossachs, making wee Ben Venue,

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at just 2,300 feet, look more like an Alpine peak, and Loch Katrine resemble an Italian lake.

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The reason why artists transformed landscapes like this had to do with

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ways of seeing the world, and to do that required certain techniques.

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Some artists believe that to truly appreciate a scene, you first had to

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frame it and then accentuate its features artificially to truly see the essential,

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romantic, picturesque qualities in what they were looking at, and to do that, they used this special

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dark piece of glass - a Claude glass - it's like a dark mirror.

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The idea of the Claude glass was to hold it up and to look at the view

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you wanted to appreciate as a reflection over your shoulder.

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Now this revealed the essential romantic picturesque qualities

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of the scene that you couldn't see with the naked eye, as it were.

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Bizarre.

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Views that had a calming effect on tourists were called "picturesque",

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while more dramatic landscape was called "sublime".

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In the 18th century the word "sublime"

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had a quite precise meaning - it meant to be awe-inspired by the wild, untamed forces of nature.

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One of Scotland's earliest tourists and devotee of sublime beauty was the traveller Sarah Murray.

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In 1796, she came to the Trossachs and wrote breathlessly about the beauties of Loch Katrine.

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"The awefulness, the solemnity and the sublimity of the scene

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"is beyond, far beyond description, either of the pen or pencil.

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"Nothing but the eye can convey to the mind such scenery."

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I love Sarah Murray.

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A widow in her early 50s, she spent three months rattling around Scotland

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searching for the sublime, which for her usually meant finding a waterfall somewhere.

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In 1799 she published a book, A Companion And Useful Guide To The Beauties Of Scotland.

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Full of helpful tips and advice on all things Scottish, Sarah urged the would-be tourist,

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"to provide yourself with a strong, roomy carriage and have the springs well corded.

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"Take with you linchpins and four shackles, a hammer and some straps."

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Sounds like the tourist was in for a bumpy ride.

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Continuing my journey through the Trossachs, I follow the road as it leaves Loch Katrine,

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heads overland and down to the harbour at Inversnaid, nestling on the shores of Loch Lomond.

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For many years, Inversnaid was a significant tourist hub.

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According to Black's guidebook, steamers left here for destinations north and south

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or west, crossing the loch and on to the coach road to Oban, which is where I'm heading next.

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Sadly, such a bewildering choice of routes is a thing of the past,

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and the loch can no longer boast of regular steamer links.

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However, there is now a faster, more efficient and exciting way of getting to Oban - by sea plane.

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For a country with a disproportionately long coastline, and hundreds of inland lochs,

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I've often wondered why Scotland never really capitalised on its sea plane potential.

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But recently a Scottish-based company is rectifying this with a network of air routes.

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My flight today from Loch Lomond to Oban takes less than 20 minutes.

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Back in the days of Black's guidebook, this journey was a two-day coach ride.

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This is absolutely exhilarating. What better way to see the West Coast of Scotland than by sea plane?

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It's all down there - mountains, lochs, rivers,

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glens, spread out like a map. It's absolutely magnificent.

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It's quite awe-inspiring.

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It's actually quite sublime.

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Had Sarah Murray been able to exchange her carriage for this sea plane ride, I'm sure she

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would have been more than thrilled as we skim across the waters of Oban Bay.

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In Victorian times, Oban was the Charing Cross of the West Coast,

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the centre of an integrated transport system

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that connected steamers, trains, carriages and charabancs

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to places as far afield as Glasgow, Fort William, Stornoway and Orkney.

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A German tourist arriving at this busy port in 1858 provides a rather early example of his nation's

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unfortunate desire always to be first.

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Now we all know that Germans hate standing in queues and absolutely hate being last, and the same was

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true back then, so when the German tourist Theodor Fontane disembarked from a steamer and

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saw a large group of people moving towards the hotel, all his instincts told him to hurry on ahead.

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Fontane later described how he and his friend trotted along the quay

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in a sort of race with a number of Scots to secure accommodation at the Caledonian Hotel.

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In their unseemly haste, the Germans got to the hotel first,

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but their efforts were all in vain - it was fully booked.

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If only they'd made a reservation, they were told.

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A rare example of poor German planning.

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Oban is still a very busy place, but the steamers that once shuttled back and forth have been replaced

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by the ubiquitous CalMac ferries, taking islanders and tourists to the Hebrides.

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But the golden age lives on in the shape of the lovely old paddle steamer Waverley.

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I'm boarding her to sail to the Island of Mull.

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In Victorian times, paddle steamers were the life blood of the West Coast.

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Without them, mass tourism would have been impossible.

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On board the Waverley, the world's last ocean-going paddle steamer, you can still get a glimpse of the

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old magic, a time when Macbrayne steamers were famed for their luxury.

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Orchestras played while silver service waiters fawned over diners in the restaurant.

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There was a book stall, fruit stall, post office, and for those in need

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of some remedial follicle care, there was even a hairdressing salon.

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This was the modern world, and the Industrial Revolution

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that made it all possible also created the modern tourist.

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Enterprising Victorians were quick to see the potential of mass transportation,

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and one man in particular seized the opportunities to become an unlikely tourist innovator.

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To find out more, I've come below deck to meet the travel historian Nikki MacLeod.

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Nikki, it seems to me that the Industrial Revolution was a

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crucial factor in the development of tourism in Scotland.

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Here we are on the Waverley, an example of the early steam power that drew people to the area,

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but as I understand it, there were some key personalities that latched onto the idea that this

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new technology could be harnessed to bring people to the Highlands.

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Exactly, and the most famous of those was Thomas Cook,

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now a household name.

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Thomas Cook was one of the very early pioneers, one of the first people to actually take

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those transportation modes and sort of package them together into easy itineraries for people to follow.

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Up until then, the only people who could really have afforded to take a trip to Scotland

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were those with the money or the leisure to make what was a difficult journey.

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Remember at this time, there was no direct rail link between England and Scotland.

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What kind of character was Cook?

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He was a Baptist and a very, very keen worker for the Temperance Movement.

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And much of the impetus behind arranging these excursions was the idea that if you provided rational

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improving entertainments for people, it would keep them away from the gin palace.

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Now as I understand it, Thomas Cook was someone with

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a social conscience, and he brought that attitude into the Highlands with his tourists.

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Yes, in fact it was really in Iona.

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He was horrified at the poverty he found on the island, and he set up there a fund

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which his tourists subscribed to year upon year, and in a number of years they'd actually raised enough money

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to buy the islanders a fleet of fishing vessels, 24 fishing vessels in fact, one of which

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the islanders named The Thomas Cook in gratitude, really, to their benefactor.

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So not only did he invent the package tour, he invented tourism with a conscience?

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Exactly, yes, a very influential figure.

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History is nothing if not ironic.

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For most early tourists, including those on Cook's Tartan Tours, coming to Scotland was an escape

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from the new industrial cities of 19th-century Britain, which were the

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very antithesis of the sublime they were looking for in nature.

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But to reach the romantic landscapes of Scotland, tourists increasingly depended

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on inventions like the steam engine, a potent symbol of the industrial world they wanted to leave behind.

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This is Tobermory on the Isle of Mull - in my opinion,

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the prettiest harbour in Scotland, but then I'm biased - I have family here.

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Black's guidebook sings the town's praises too, but can't refrain from

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seeing the place as if it was somewhere else, describing it like a fishing village in Italy.

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But why would Black's want to compare Mull with Italy?

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Because, let's face it, they're pretty dissimilar.

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Well, the answer reveals a kind of cultural snobbery.

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In the 18th and 19th centuries, aristocrats on the Grand Tour

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travelled to Italy to absorb the culture of classical Rome.

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Anything Italian, therefore, acquired an added value.

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By extension, anything that looked Italian was also worthy of consideration, even here on Mull.

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This no doubt explains why Black's guidebook

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makes the unlikely comparison of the island's Ben More with Mount Vesuvius.

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I've come to the west of the island to visit a place forever bound up

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with ideas of tragedy, romance and the awful power of nature.

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This is Gribun, lying beneath the forbidding cliffs of Ben More, the wildest mountain on Mull.

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The story concerns an event that took place some 200 years ago and features this enormous boulder.

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Now according to local legend, it was a

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"dark and stormy night" as they say, and a young couple were consummating their marriage in their new home.

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They were in a state of nuptial bliss when high on the mountain,

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this enormous boulder was dislodged by torrential rain.

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With a furious roar, the boulder smashed its way down the

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mountainside, landing on the young couple's cottage, killing them both.

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And this is where they still lie, crushed beneath the boulder

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that destroyed their home and their hopes.

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Ever since it's been known as Tragedy Rock.

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Now I'm a big fan of Mull and despite the salutary tale of Tragedy Rock, even felt brave enough

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to get married here, which I suppose is endorsement of a kind for the island's romantic charms.

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But not every visitor has been quite so well disposed towards Mull's romantic beauty and allure.

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John McCulloch, a 19th-century geologist

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and friend of Sir Walter Scott, whinged on about almost everything.

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"Mull is a detestable land, trackless and repulsive, rude without beauty, stormy and dreary."

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Doctor Johnson, the great man of letters, was similarly unmoved.

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"It is natural in traversing this gloom of desolation

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"to enquire whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face."

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There wasn't an ounce of sensibility in either of these men.

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Their eyes and minds were entirely closed to romantic ideas of the

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sublime and the power of nature, unlike the wonderful Sarah Murray,

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who wrote rapturously about the magnificent scenery and her first view of Iona.

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"My eyes were fixed on a view so wild and yet so sublime.

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"Huge fantastical rocks of fine red granite standing and lying in every imaginable form,

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"and then the ruins of the Abbey that made the mind reflect

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"on how frail and uncertain is human greatness."

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Iona Abbey was restored in the 1920s and 1930s,

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but when Sarah Murray came here, the great ecclesiastical buildings were in ruins.

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Now if anything, this made them even more attractive to the Victorian tourists who came after her.

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There was something exquisitely romantic about the shattered remains of a lost world,

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and walking amongst the broken stones,

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some tourists felt close to the Celtic twilight of myth and legend.

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They were also moved by the idea of Iona as the cradle of Celtic Christianity.

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1600 years ago, St Columba arrived from Ireland, bringing the faith to the heathen.

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This struck a chord with Victorians, who were inclined to describe the

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ambitions of the British Empire as "illuminating the darkness".

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Iona, like Imperial Britain, was a civilising beacon in a vast sea of superstition and ignorance.

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High-minded ideas like this brought Thomas Cook to the Island.

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Standing in the ruins, he educated his tourists about the strength of religion,

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the evils of drink, and the frailty of mankind.

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But Cook's doctrine of temperance wasn't to everyone's taste.

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There was another wilder destination to head for, one that spoke to the seeker of the Romantic ideal.

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In 1796 Sarah Murray braved the elements, and made the pilgrimage to visit the most dramatic

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and sublime spectacle on Scotland's West Coast - the island of Staffa.

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Getting to Staffa has always been something of an adventure.

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The island lies eight miles off the west coast of Mull, and even on a calm day,

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the swell and the tides make for a bumpy and exciting crossing.

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But why would a small uninhabited lump of rock lying in the

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turbulent North Atlantic become a mecca for early tourists?

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Well, the answer goes right to the heart of the Romantic ideal and the Romantic way of seeing the world.

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In 1762, James Macpherson published what he claimed were fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry.

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Macpherson said they'd been composed centuries earlier by the blind bard Ossian, who celebrated the deeds of

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Fingal, a bold hero who lived in the Celtic twilight of a pre-Christian world.

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MUSIC: "Fingal's Cave" Overture by Felix Mendelssohn

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In 1772, just 10 years after the publication of the Ossian poems,

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the explorer James Banks of the Royal Society

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was forced to shelter from a storm and discovered the island of Staffa and its unique and marvellous cave.

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Although Banks was a scientist, he was greatly influenced by the romantic cult that had

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grown up around Ossian's poems, and named the great cave Fingal's Cave, and you can see why.

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It's a place of truly heroic proportions.

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The cave is 75 metres long and the roof rises 20 metres above my head, seemingly supported by hundreds of

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angular basalt columns, reminding me of the vault of a Gothic cathedral.

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It's an inspiring place and sums up everything the early

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Romantic tourist was looking for - wild, remote, spectacular and full of heroic associations.

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When Sarah Murray came here in 1796, she could hardly contain herself.

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"The atmosphere of the deity filled my soul.

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"I was lost in wonder, gratitude and praise.

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"Never shall I forget the sublime, heaven-like sensations with which Fingal's Cave inspired me.

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"I was in ecstasy."

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Just about everyone who considered themselves to be someone

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made the difficult journey to this improbable rock in the Atlantic.

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Artists, writers, composers and musicians came to gape in awe at the sublime power of nature.

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The poets Wordsworth and Keats came.

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Sir Walter Scott came.

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So too did the early French science fiction writer Jules Verne.

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Robert Louis Stevenson made the journey.

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So too did the young Queen Victoria, who thrilled at the sound

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of the National Anthem played in Fingal's Cave.

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But perhaps most famously, the 20-year-old composer Felix Mendelssohn

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wrote his celebrated Hebrides Overture after a stormy but inspiring visit in 1829.

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Mendelssohn's overture is the first piece of classical music I remember as a child.

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Listening to it during school assembly, we were encouraged to

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let our imaginations wander to the Hebrides, and in my mind's eye

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I could see the bow of a boat pushing its way through a green sea towards an enchanted Island.

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Now that's what I call a romantic image, and

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that's why people still come here searching for the romantic ideal.

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My next Grand Tour takes me in search of the sporting life,

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as I travel from Perthshire to Royal Deeside.

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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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