The Hebrides islands have a long history and their culture has been affected by the influences of Celtic, Norse and English-speaking peoples. The Inner Hebrides include the Iona, Scotland’s hidden mystical island, Staffa and Mull. Iona, a small island off the western coast of Scotland, was a centre of Irish monasticism for four centuries. A tiny piece of land, measuring just 6 km long by 2 km wide. However, Iona is famous for being something of a symbolic centre of Scottish Christianity, and still today is one of the best places in the world to seek silence, with a profound feeling of peace. According to tradition a important monastery was founded in 563 by the monk Columba, also known as Colm Cille, exiled from his native Ireland. The monastery played a crucial role in the conversion to Christianity of Scotland in the late 6th century and of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Iona became the centre of one of the most important monastic systems in Great Britain and Ireland, its scriptorium produced important documents and many Scottish early kings were buried there. The monastery is often associated with the distinctive practices and traditions known as Celtic Christianity. Iona's prominence diminished as a result of Viking raids and in 849 the monastery was abandoned. Today the ancient but heavily reconstructed abbey is the spiritual heart of the island. with the beautiful cloister, and a museum displaying fabulous carved high crosses. Next to the abbey is an ancient graveyard where there's an evocative Romanesque chapel, as well as a mound that marks, according many legends, the burial place of 48 of Scotland's early kings, including Macbeth.
Not far from Iona, on the other side of a stormy stretch of sea, Staffa is a small island of legends, giants, great sea caves, and wildlife, a unique geological phenomenon recognised as one of the wonders of the natural world. The Vikings named the island Staffa, “Pillar Island” in Old Norse because its columnar basalt reminded their traditional houses built from vertically placed tree-logs. In the 18th century the first travellers admired the basalt columns of the island's main sea cavern, the “Fingal's Cave”, and many personalities visited Staffa, including Queen Victoria, Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn. The latter's Hebrides Overture brought further fame to Staffa. The sea gate to Iona and Staffa is the bigger island of Mull, where the pretty capital is complemented by majestic scenery and castles like Duart, the ancestral seat of the Maclean clan on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Sound of Mull.