Skye is known as the Misty Isle, its moods shifting in tandem with its fickle weather patterns. Cherished for striking scenery and Gaelic culture and history, it offers a landscape of rolling hills of heather and snowcapped mountains, rugged coastlines with waterfalls tumbling to the sea, and the green pastures of tiny farming villages. Castles abound, imposing fortresses silhouetted against the blue sky, and ruined keeps brooding in the mist. One, Dunvegan, is still the home of the MacLeods, and has been a stronghold of their clan chieftains for eight centuries.