Inside Fingal's Cave, a stunning geological formation on the small Hebridean island of Staffa, to the west of the Isle of Mull on Scotland's Atlantic coast. Staffa is uninhabited and a national nature reserve, but a regular stream of pleasure boats carry visitors to the island to see the cave.
With distictive hexagonal basalt columns, Fingal's Cave and the cliffs around it resemble the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland. Indeed both sites are named due to the legend that they formed each of end of a causeway linking Antrim to Argyll. In myth Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) built the causeway, which was later ripped up, leaving only these remnants. Lava flows and geology are far less compelling than romantic myth, it seems.
The German composer Felix Mendelssohn was amongst the many people to have been inspired and awed by the cave, featuring it in his Hebrides Overture. It's also been referenced by everyone from Jules Verne to Pink Floyd since it was popularised by the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks in 1772.
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