Staffa Fingal's Cave
Staffa is an uninhabited island in the Inner Hebrides whose hexagonal basalt columns and the celebrated Fingal's Cave have made it one of the most remarkable natural wonders in the British Isles. The cave is approximately twenty metres high and sixty metres deep, its walls composed of regular basalt columns broken by wave action into the stepped, organ-pipe forms characteristic of this kind of basalt coastline. The sound of the sea within the cave inspired Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture of 1830, one of the most direct examples of a natural place inspiring a major musical composition. The island was visited by Turner, Wordsworth, Queen Victoria, Keats and Jules Verne among many others who found in Staffa the combination of sublime natural form and romantic remoteness that defined the Romantic aesthetic. Access to Staffa is by boat from Oban, Mull and Iona, with landings dependent on sea conditions. The island is entirely in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, and the combination of the geological spectacle, the musical association and the Inner Hebrides setting makes a visit one of the most memorable available on the Scottish island coast.