The rooms are a bit basic by modern city standards but they’re clean and comfortable and the food in the restaurant is excellent. One option for an overnight stay is to book a room at the Jura hotel next door which features fantastic views overlooking the harbour where you’ll be treated to an almost untouched landscape of sandy bays and deep-blue water, guaranteeing a memorable evening watching the sunset with a fine whisky in hand. Instead, go to the Jura distillery website and fill in your details 24 hours beforehand to reserve your space, and remember there’s a good chance you’ll get a sample or two during your visit so you won’t be able to drive afterwards. You can join a distillery tour when you visit (around £10 per person) which is well worth taking the time for, but note that booking is essential so don’t get there and expect to immediately join the tour. I tried a few samples during my visit and I can totally recommend both ‘Origin’ (honey finish) and ‘Prophecy’ (peat finish) if you’re after a decent dram or three. Jura whisky ranges in flavours from non-peated to heavily peated so it manages to bridge the gap between the sweet floral notes of mainland whisky and the often medicinal whisky produced on Islay.
When I first arrived at the tiny Feolin ferry terminal I wasn’t quite sure what to expect because, as is usual, I picked the one day out of the entire week when the weather turned decidedly wet.Ī heavy mist hung in the air and the skies were grey and foreboding – not exactly an inviting scene when you’ve come to an island to explore its beaches. Not quite the eyeball-popping landscape you’ll find on Skye, but wild, open, and atmospheric all the same. That’s pretty impressive when you consider that deer on Jura outnumber humans 25 to 1!īut it’s not just the animals that make Jura worthy of a visit as the scenery is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.
Isle of jura scotland full#
Not that Craighouse is a large village (it’s actually tiny) but there’s a distillery sited in the centre of it along with a hotel that overlooks a very picturesque beach, so it’s certainly worth visiting if you ever decide to take the ferry from Port Askaig to explore the remarkable landscape.Īlthough Jura is quite small at 142 square miles it’s absolutely full of wildlife and a visit will almost certainly guarantee sightings of herds of red deer, whose numbers currently hover around the 5000 mark. Just 200 people live on this impossibly pretty isle – many of them employed in the fishing industry – with the village of Craighouse housing a large percentage of the population. This remote dot of land in the Inner Hebrides is a mere 10-minute ferry ride from the tourist-hotspot Isle of Islay, yet it seems to be frequently missed by visitors who are more concerned with taking selfies than experiencing the delights of one of Scotland’s most remote islands.Īnd Jura is certainly remote. Just like the Isle of Eigg, the Isle of Jura is often considered to be one of the wildest and hardest-to-reach places on the west coast of Scotland – even though it’s only 60 miles from Glasgow as the crow flies.
Wear waterproof boots (link to my recommended boots) or your feet will quickly get cold. I took a Berghaus backpack filled with travel essentials and it served me amazingly well.ģ: Watch out for that blanket bog. 1: Check the ferry timetable page for timing revisions before setting out.Ģ: Facilities are very limited on Jura so I suggest packing a lunchbox and water bottles if you’re going for a day trip.
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