My life in Scotland: it all started like this

It all started in June 2011. Denis, my partner, had already been to Scotland several times and had always spoken to me about it with enthusiasm, his eyes lit up just talking about it. He then decided to propose a 7-day holiday to spend "on the road" to show me the beauty of those places.

The first stop was Stirling and we visited the castle and the monument dedicated to William Wallace. Stirling is a charming and very lively town, with a very active centre, full of shops and pubs. The castle is beautiful to visit and from its walls you can enjoy a beautiful 360° view of the city and the countryside below.

After months of waiting and preparations, the day has finally arrived! We left Venice airport, with hearts full of excitement and expectations, and boarded a flight to Edinburgh.

But the real journey would begin the next day. Stirling is the gateway to the Highlands, the region I most wanted to visit and that intrigued me the most, due to Denis's long and detailed stories. From the first miles I was struck by the extraordinary beauty of the Scottish landscape, lakes, hills and mountains covered in green. The color green is the predominant color in Scotland; but not a "normal" green, a dazzling, unreal green. Mixed with the blue of the sky, if we are lucky to find a cloudless day, it is an explosive mix that gets inside you and never goes away. We passed through picturesque villages, such as Pitlochry and Aviemore, that seemed to have come out of a fairy tale. Sheep grazing scattered on the hills, hairy cows with curious faces, horses with strong legs to walk on those permanently wet and muddy grounds.

We spent two nights in Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, and of course we couldn't miss the opportunity to explore Loch Ness. The atmosphere that surrounded the lake was magical, but even more magical was the Saturday night we spent in a pub in the city center.

I reserve a separate mention for the Isle of Skye. Connected to the mainland by a bridge, Skye is one of Scotland's natural wonders, with its jagged cliffs, mountains and hidden bays. Every corner of the island seemed like a picture painted by nature itself: grazing sheep, white houses and green expanses as far as the eye could see.

We stayed in a beautiful B&B run by a couple from London, ex-military, who had decided to move there after retirement to live an isolated life away from the chaos of the metropolis. They cooked a delicious dinner for just the two of us, gave us info on where to go and what to visit and it was difficult to leave that corner of Paradise two days later.

Our visit to the Highlands ended in Ullapool, a small village in the North. But first we stopped at Inverewe Garden, botanical gardens created in 1862 and now managed by the National Trust of Scotland, which count 200,000 visits a year. In June they were in full bloom, with every possible flower, of every color and shape. A gift for our eyes and our nose.

Of course, on the way back we spent two days in Edinburgh, where we got lost in the streets of the Old Town, in the historic center. Here we breathed in the charm of its ancient stones and its Gothic buildings; admired its skyline from the Princess Street Gardens; listened to the sound of dozens of bagpipes, whose sound enters your veins; visited its two wonderful castles in the historic center.

Edinburgh is a city with a thousand facets and a thousand contradictions; it is unique in the world as Venice or New York can be, but it is, and remains, a city on a human scale, where the thousand gardens and parks mix with palaces and beautiful Victorian and Edwardian houses. It is a city that you can visit entirely on foot, without effort, with connections every 10 minutes to the airport. It is a safe city, especially for women; you can walk around until late at night even alone without feeling in danger or threatened and you breathe a sense of freedom that has no equal anywhere.

Leaving Scotland was not easy; returning home to the usual routine was difficult. The baggage of memories and experiences lived during that trip had marked us forever. And here begins our adventure, which led us to relocate to Scotland in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic. But that's another story.....

There was live music, and it was very easy to meet so many other people, locals and tourists, eager to let us experience the Scottish welcome, which involves drinking hectolitres of beer, accompanied by whisky. A mix that can kill you, if you are not used to it. Here I experienced for the first time the famous Scottish hospitality: people ready to help you with a smile, eager to know where you come from, always happy to tell stories and give advice. It was a weekend that we will carry in our hearts forever.