Portree on foot: the harbour, the Lump and the Scorrybreac circuit

Portree is built on a slope above its harbour, and you will notice. Three walks cover it: a short loop round the harbour and the Lump, the Scorrybreac circuit along the shore, and the climb up the Apothecary's Tower on the Lump, which is short and gives the view down on the harbour. All three start within a kilometre of Somerled Square.

Down to the harbour

Start in the square, where the buses stop, and walk down Bank Street. The Royal Hotel on the corner stands on the site of MacNab's Inn, which Wikipedia names as the last meeting place of Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746. Quay Brae drops steeply from there to the harbour.

The harbour is the town's reason for being. Wikipedia describes it as fringed by cliffs, with a pier designed by Thomas Telford. Quay Street runs along the front with the painted houses that are on every Portree postcard, and a Geograph photographer's caption from 2022 notes cruise liners in summer, a fishing fleet and the salmon farms. Sea Breezes and the Lower Deck serve seafood on the front, and Stardust Boat Trips go out from here to look for sea eagles. Walk the length of Quay Street to the pier and back.

The Lump and the Apothecary's Tower

Above the south side of the harbour is the Lump, a rocky knoll that the council's licensing record calls Am Meall and that some call Fancy Hill. On top is a small octagonal tower. A Geograph caption from February 2025 says Dr Alexander MacLeod, known as An Dotair Bàn, Lord MacDonald's chamberlain, laid the hill out as a pleasure garden in 1829 and built the tower in 1835, and that it told sailing ships of the medical services in town and served as a dispensary. The Folly Flâneuse, who has written up its history in detail, says a steel staircase now gives access to the battlements.

Go up. From the top you look straight down on the harbour, the painted houses and the pier, and across the bay. The Skye Highland Games are held on the Lump each August; the 2026 Games were on Wednesday 5 August, and the Folly Flâneuse notes they have been held there for more than a century, with breaks for war and the Covid pandemic.

From the Lump, come back along Beaumont Crescent, where the Rosedale Hotel is made from a row of fishermen's cottages built in the 1800s, by its own account, and climb to Bosville Terrace, which looks over the whole bay, before returning to the square along Wentworth Street.

The Scorrybreac circuit

This is the walk to do on a day when cloud is down on the Trotternish ridge and the Storr is not worth the bus fare. Walkhighlands gives it as 3 km, 1 to 2 hours, with 164 metres of ascent, starting at a parking bay at the bottom of Scorrybreck Road, less than a kilometre from the centre.

The first half is gentle. A tarmac path follows the wooded shore of the harbour past Portree sailing club's boathouse at the Scorrybreac slip, then crosses a footbridge onto a headland that Walkhighlands says was bought by members of Clan Nicolson, with a memorial and flagpole above Loch Portree. A Geograph caption puts the site of Scorrybreac House, the clan's ancestral home, on the hill above Torvaig. The shore path looks out to Raasay and to Ben Tianavaig, where Walkhighlands says white-tailed eagles nest, so bring binoculars.

Further on, a Geograph contributor describes a broad grass shelf known locally as the Bile, meaning lip or edge, which is a raised beach used for grazing. Then the work starts. Walkhighlands says the second half has rough stones and a steep ascent: the path zigzags up through the trees towards Torvaig and then comes back down through a silver birch wood to the Cuillin Hills Hotel and the road to the start. Wear proper shoes.

Timing it

All of this fits in a day with time for lunch, and none of it needs a booking except the boat. Early morning is a quiet time for the harbour, before the boat trips go out, and the Scorrybreac circuit is good in the evening because the start is so close to town. The tower is free. On Games day in early August the Lump is the arena, so check the organisers' site before planning to climb it that day.

If the weather lifts, the Storr is fifteen minutes away on the 57A from Somerled Square, and the walk up from the car park is covered in our guide to getting round Skye without a car.