Original subtitles

This is Scotland

as you've never seen it before.

From above, we'll discover a country of spectacular panoramas

where the landscape has forged the nation's rich history

and continues to shape its future.

In this series, we'll take an aerial tour across Europe.

Filmed over the course of a single year, and through the changing seasons

we will uncover the culture, history, and engineering

that built the great European nations we see today.

Scotland is the UK's most northerly nation

\with Northern Ireland and England

\its nearest neighbors to the west and south.

\The majority of the 5.5 million Scots live in a cluster of towns and cities

\situated between the two population centers

\of Glasgow and Edinburgh.

\To the north, lies a rugged region

\called the Highlands and three major groups of islands.

Scotland's famous islands are home to spectacular beaches

and soaring scenery.

Its expansive highlands boast the UK's tallest mountains

and are filled with historic Lochs and Glens.

In its urban heart,

as the weather warms, tourists flock to the capital, Edinburgh.

The famous Royal Mile swells

as 250,000 visitors arrive for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe,

the world's largest arts festival.

Summer comes to Scotland.

Visitors head to the sun-kissed Highlands,

and its spectacular scenery to look for the fabled monster in Loch Ness

and take in the famous Highland Games, which are thought to have originated

during meetings between Scotland's famous historical clans.

Although sometimes, these rivalries led to conflict

and infamously bloody consequences.

Many of Scotland's Lochs are the water filled scars

of ancient glaciers that flowed out to sea.

A closer look reveals that some of them are headed by

steep sided valleys known as Glens.

They include one of Scotland's natural treasures.

This is Glencoe.

It's regularly voted amongst the most beautiful places in Scotland.

Its vast wild panoramas can take the breath away.

But it's also the site of one of Scotland's most infamous massacres.

330 years ago, a clan called the MacDonalds

were brutally slaughtered here

and their homes destroyed by government forces.

Archaeologist, Derek Alexander, and his team

excavate this 66 square meter site...

Just looking at the marks on it as well actually.

...to unlock the secrets of how Glencoe's long lost clan

once lived.

Glencoe is probably the most famous Glen in Scotland.

\It's known the world over, really, but it's also got this...

\really, quite dramatic and quite, I would say, sorrowful history to it.

Derek and his team sift through the ruins

for clues to what life in Glencoe was like for the MacDonalds over 300 years ago.

The excavations have so far revealed that at least five buildings

once stood here in a village called Achtriachtan

in the 17th and 18th centuries.

It's one of eight villages the MacDonald's called home.

Using clues from their excavations, Derek and his team

are now embarking on an ambitious project to build a clansman's house from scratch

with traditional materials, and techniques.

Over six months, a team of skilled craftsmen

have already constructed their house's wooden frame and turf walls.

Archaeology is a destructive process.

So, you are often removing material to see what was earlier.

It's really nice to see, you know, something taken from the evidence

that we have recovered and built again.

It's only really when you see something

face to face and full replica, that you get a really good idea

of how these buildings would have been.

It's now time to waterproof the house.

Derek believes the MacDonalds would have used a material

found all around them to create a thatch roof,

a hardy shrub called Ling heather that's native to the highlands.

Brian, the thatcher, needs to find Heather long enough to give a thick thatch

that will keep out Scotland's well known wet weather.

When you're focused on a job like this,

\you're busy with a particular project or a task

\working with turf or thatch and you forget about the setting.

But occasionally you look up and just remind yourself

that you're looking at huge mountains all around you

which are changing all the time in different lights.

The house's roof is lined with a layer of turf.

On to this, Brian and his colleague Mark

pinned down bundles of Heather, building it up in layers.

The team, then tie the heather into place,

much like sewing fabric together with a needle and thread.

Okay. Pull away.

Brian and Mark will complete

the rest of the roof over the coming weeks,

whilst the fine summer weather continues to shine on Glencoe.

In the 1970s, Scotland found wealth

with the discovery of offshore oil and gas.

Today, oil platforms are beginning to be retired,

but fossil fuel still make up seven percent of the economy

with Aberdeen at the heart of the industry.

Scotland's largest exports

are food and drink, including the renowned Scotch whisky.

130 distilleries are dotted across its islands,

lowlands and famous heather-clad highlands.

During a few weeks each summer, the heather slopes

undergo a spectacular transformation.

Turning vivid purple as the native ling heather erupts into flower.

This colorful spectacle is also the source of one of Scotland's most prized foods.

The heather's display can be seen on its vast heath-lands

that stretch from the Highlands to the Southern Uplands.

In one corner of the country on East Lothian...

Small white boxes appear across the landscape

during this brief three to four-week show.

These are beehives

and the summer heather Bloom

marks the time for one of Scotland's most unusual migrations.

Honey producers race to bring their bees here

to feast on the purple flowers.

This one of a kind nectar creates one of Europe's