Home can be more than the place you rest your head. It can be a bookshop or a book. Home can be a boggy trail through the hills or a beach at sunrise or the taste of wild strawberries in June. Perhaps home can be a place you visited on a whim when you were young, a place that sang to you and offered up comfort and joy and vibrancy, like the taste of wild strawberries in June.
A decade ago, I fell in love with a place—Scotland—that has beckoned me home half a dozen times. Each visit cements in my heart that this is a land of magic, joy and raw beauty, and that there’s no other place in the world that feels quite as right to me as Scotland.
There’s Edinburgh, with its Old Town of narrow closes and medieval buildings, a city teeming with history, culture and hidden gems like Dean Village, a little sanctuary along the Water of Leith. Each time I step foot on its cobbled lanes, I’m transported to another time.
But an exploration of Scotland isn’t complete until one leaves the city. Coast-to-coast, it’s a country of rugged hills and wildness. Hear the stags cry out in autumn in the Highlands. See the crash of sea waves against northern cliffs in spring. Follow the River Dee as it winds through fields and villages in the east. Swim the many lochs and hunt for castle ruins. While it’s a small country, Scotland offers up big and wonderful beauty wherever you look.
And so, I go to Scotland.
About the Author: Nora Logue grew up in Barrington Hills but now practices the art of photography in Denver. See her work at RowanandBirch.com and on Instagram (@rowanandbirch).
