Originally Posted by
Misco60
Long drive day, indeed. That's about 7 hours' driving, leaving almost no time to stop and enjoy the lovely places en route. Don't underestimate the toll of driving those narrow, winding, remote roads, and on the "wrong" (for you) side of the road, too: it will require constant concentration and will be exhausting. And then you're going to do it all again, but to Glasgow, two days later.
Skye is really not feasible as a side-trip from Edinburgh and, as beautiful as it is, I think you'd have a much better vacation if you dropped it from your itinerary.
You could cut out the Loch Ness detour and go straight to Portree. That takes you past Eilean Donan if you go via the bridge to Portree. That is maybe 5-5.5 hours. A pretty straight shot, all very good roads. I did it from EDI about a month ago. And back again three days later. I even managed a side trip down the Skyfall road to the bottom to Glen Etieve (now that was a single track road which required some careful concentration, but so worth it). I would favor Skye over Loch Ness for sure, and driving straight there makes it very doable and the trip to GLA is even 45 minutes short on the way back.