Step off a boat onto an island of basalt columns

Staffa is a small island west of Mull made entirely of volcanic rock. Where its black basalt cooled slowly it split into columns, mostly six-sided, packed like pencils. The Vikings named it from the Old Norse for pillar, because the columns reminded them of their own houses built of upright logs. Nobody has lived on it since 1800.

The boat comes in to a landing beside the columns, and only in calm conditions, so the swell decides on the day. There is about an hour ashore. A path runs along the broken tops of the columns, with a rail, into Fingal's Cave.

Joseph Banks came in 1772 and arrived after dark. Felix Mendelssohn came in 1829, and the island gave him the Hebrides Overture, first played in London in 1832. Inside the cave, the sea is louder than the overture.