Skyelight Apartment

Skye's only town, from the first floor

Portree is the one place on Skye where you can leave the car and still have a holiday, and the Skyelight Apartment is in the middle of it, up one flight, with the glazing turned towards Loch Portree and the Cuillin behind it.

It sleeps four in two bedrooms, a king and a twin, with one family bathroom and an open plan kitchen, dining and living space. Full height windows run along the front, so the view does most of the decorating, and there is satellite TV, a shelf of books, board games and binoculars for the days when the Cuillin are in cloud and nobody is going anywhere.

Being in the town is the point. The square, the restaurants, the shops, the bus stop and the harbour where the boat trips leave are all within a few minutes on foot, which on an island where everything else needs a drive is a genuinely different kind of stay.

The one thing to plan for is parking. There is none at the apartment, and Bayfield is the public car park to use.

If it is booked, the same people let Skye Eyrie, a cottage for two thirteen miles north at Culnacnoc.

Good to know

Features

Location

Where it puts you

Portree is the practical centre of Skye and roughly half an hour from most of what people come for. North on the A855 is the Trotternish ridge: the Old Man of Storr, Lealt Falls, Kilt Rock and the Quiraing at the top. South and west are the Cuillin, Glenbrittle and the Fairy Pools, which are busiest in the middle of the day and quiet at either end of it.

In the town itself, the walk round the Scorrybreac path above the harbour takes an hour and gives you the view back over the bay that everybody photographs from the pier. Dunvegan Castle and the coral beaches at Claigan are about forty five minutes west.