Portree Travel Guide

The pier was built in 1818-1828 by the famous Scottish Engineer Thomas Telford, who was known in his time as ‘The Colossus of Roads’, a great builder of many infrastructures not just in Scotland but in the whole United Kingdom and also abroad. He built also the roads across the island that connect Portree with Uig and with Kyleakin.
The harbour of Portree used to be a port for small fishermen’s boats, but after the pier was built it gained cargo traffic and better connections with the rest of Scotland: from 1826 Portree had a weekly service of steamers connecting it with West Loch Tarbert, Tobermory, Isleornsay and Kyleakin, and from 1851 it became a port of call for the weekly ship between Glasgow and Stornoway.
The houses along Quay Street, parallel to the pier, built at the end of the 19th century, are a very picturesque sight.

In summer, during the high season, many organized tours stop in Portree and provide lunch here for their participants. This means that at a certain time in the morning several buses arrive in the main square, unleashing crowds of tourists who quickly fill the souvenir shops and the restaurants. This makes it very hard to get a table.
I learned it on my first day in Portree, when I had to buy sandwiches in a grocery shop because of this problem.