Stornoway
Stornoway is the largest town in the Hebrides and is also the administrative, commercial and industrial centre for the islands.
There are plenty of shops in the town and the main Scottish high street banks have branches here. Stornoway airport is three miles to the east of the town.
Regular flights fly to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness as well as to Benbecula where passengers heading for Barra catch a connecting plane.
A ferry to Ullapool makes two daily sailings (one return trip on Sundays plus extra voyages in the middle of summer) with onward bus connections to Inverness.
The port is a strategic haven for French and Spanish trawlers fuelling to fish the deep water in the Atlantic and towards Iceland as well as a safe shelter from winter. UK fishery protection vessels, transient cargo ships, naval frigates are part of the working maritime fleet which take advantage of the port.
A fantastic view of the town, harbour and Broadbay area is seen from the site of the Lewis War memorial which marks the human sacrifice the islands made in the First and Second World Wars.
Most Saturday mornings, a crofters market is held in the town centre with stalls full of locally grown potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Fishermen have a stall offering freshly caught shellfish.
Local butchers sell meat raised on the island and fresh free range eggs are sold in local shops.
Most of the Stornoway pubs are fairly close by each other in the town centre. All are open until 11pm while some carry on until 1am most week nights and one or two until 2am into Saturday morning with live music particularly at the weekend
A new sports centre offers swimming, fitness suite, squash, climbing wall and games hall. Parents can join their infants in the shallow children’s pool. The adjacent running track and artificial sports pitch can also be booked.
A few miles outside the town on the Lochs / Harris road is the Go-kart centre, motocross track and paintball fields.
Stornoway airport is three miles to the east of the town. It operates regular flights to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness as well as to Benbecula where passengers heading for Barra catch a connecting plane.
Stornoway Town Hall presides in the centre of the town and its main hall is used for community displays, craft sales and public events. It was originally opened in 1905 but destroyed by 13 years later. The current structure was rebuilt in 1929.
Arnish Lighthouse was built in 1853 by Alan Stevenson for the Northern Lighthouse Board - the first prefabricated iron structure of its kind in Scotland. An earlier light stood on the site for 20 years. The current lighthouse stands at the mouth of Stornoway harbour and has been unmanned since 1963. The adjacent Gun Emplacements were installed to protect the port of Stornoway from attack in WW2.
Seaweed harvesting has been reintroduced into the islands after two local men set up a drying factory at Arnish Point. Seaweed is used in many products including ice cream and processed cheese as well as in fertiliser, animal feed, cosmetics, soaps, paint and polishes.
A £ 12 million renewable energy manufacturing base has also been established at Arnish Point. It has gained international acclaim for being involved in the world's first wave farm off Portugal. It specialises in constructing massive steel tubes like wind turbines towers.
Bonnie Prince Charlie hid out at Arnish Farm when desperately seeking a ship to escape to France after his 1745 defeat at Culloden. A plaque is erected on a cairn on a heathery hillock off the road.
Amity House is the headquarters of Stornoway Port Authority. It is a grade B listed building and takes its name from a barge which was moored nearby and used as a quay in the 19th Century.
Herring girl statutes around the harbour and town signifies Stornoway’s top position in the heyday of the UK’s herring industry with millions of tons of fish exported to Russia and the Baltic states.
An Lanntair (pronounced an launn-ter) is a modern arts centre with regular exhibitions, concerts and plays. It also hosts a shop, cinema, bar and restaurant.
The Lews Castle Grounds are open to the public and the trails offer a variety of walks through different environments along tree lined paths, shoreline, river, and moorland. James Matheson transformed the immediate moorland around the castle which has developed into the present woods. Soil was taken into the island from the ballast of cargo ships. Exotic plants imported from upland areas of Asia flourished resulting in an annual colourful riot of purple flowered rhododendrons.
The watermill in the Willowglen area of the Castle Grounds generates sufficient power to light a walkway around the trees. An information centre within the open building explains the history of the site and how such water mills were used to ground grain in the 19th Century. Crofters would be forced to take their home-grown corn and oats to the landlord's mill to be milled - often hiking great distances carrying heavy sacks of grain as the landlord-controlled the building of closer mills.
Garden railings in Stornoway are Scotland's best examples of architectural ironwork. They survived in the town when huge amounts were being melted down for the war effort in World War II. Victorian and Edwardian ironwork made by world famous ironfounders, predominantly in Glasgow has been saved on Lewis permitting a peek back in time to what pre-war towns looked like.
Museum nan Eilean at the top of Francis Street dates from the 1898 when it was part of a Free Church school. It is opened daily until 5.30 pm and closes at 1pm on Saturdays.