Gairloch Heritage Museum shows what Scotland has to offer – Scotsman comment

A nuclear bunker may not exactly sound like a place anyone would want to be – except in the event of the Bomb, with a capital B, actually going off.

Gairloch Museum has been announced as one of the winners of Art Fund Museum of the Year (Picture: Marc Atkins / Art Fund 2020)

So those who turned one in Gairloch, Wester Ross, into a museum which has now been recognised as one of the best in the UK deserve all the accompanying plaudits.

Gairloch Heritage Museum – one of five winners of this year’s Art Fund Museum of the Year award along with Aberdeen Art Gallery – features displays about an Iron Age hoard and a Pictish stone found nearby as well as its historic lighthouse, a replica croft house, Gaelic and even the dreaded midges (from which the bunker may provide a welcome refuge during the height of the season).

Given the publicity created by the award, the museum can now look forward to increased interest from people wanting to see for themselves what the fuss is all about.

But it is just one example of many such gems that Scotland has to offer to tourists from other parts of the country and beyond. For those willing and able to venture off the beaten path, there are natural and artificial wonders aplenty that are just waiting to be explored.

At a time when staycations are all the rage, we in Scotland are blessed to have so many attractions that many will have overlooked in preference for holidays in the sun.

As and when Covid restrictions allow, we should get out and discover them.

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