Birthday Gallivanting

Greetings from Fort William on the mainland of Scotland, where the weather is a bit warmer, less windy and, perhaps, a wee bit sunnier!

But this town is brimming with tourists from Europe as well as Asia, and, of course, America. (Besides us, of course). 

In fact, we've seen quite a few Americans on this particular trip, due to the Ryder Cup being played, here in Scotland, this weekend.  Last I heard, the American team was ahead. 

 I'll be quite honest and tell you that I had no idea what the Ryder Cup even was.  In fact, I thought it was a horse race.  That brought quite a laugh from our last B&B hostess.

It all came to light as we headed out north on Tuesday, out of Inverkeithing towards the Cairngorms and I spotted a giant blown up Golf Ball off in the distance.  Unfortunately, Marty was driving too fast for me to manage to snap a photo, so you'll just have to leave that image to your imagination.

Apparently quite a number of Americans came over to watch the event, and planned side trips to coincide, which explains, once again, why I had such a difficult time booking rooms.  

But this area is busy due to the fascination with climbing Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in all of Scotland.  People come from all over the world to attempt to climb the cliffs.  Rest assured, that I am not one of them!

But, let me back track to this morning.  As Marty and I headed off the Isle of Skye,  the weather was miserable, but as I turned my head, what did I see?  A beautiful rainbow nearly in the same spot as when we arrived on Thursday, but not quite as brilliant.  

I wonder what the chances are of that?

Our first stop was Eilean Donan Castle.

No bright blue sky to highlight this castle today.  I can only imagine how beautiful it would look with a little sunshine bouncing off the walls.

Eilean Donan translates Island of Donan from the Gaelic.  It was named for St. Donan who came to the island in 580 and it is believed that he lived in a small cell there as a hermit.

In 1260, King Alexander II had a castle built on the island to protect his subjects from Viking invasions.  It passed through many owners over the years, finally being partially destroyed during a Jacobite uprising in 1719.

For 200 years it lay in ruins until Lt. Col John MacRae-Gilstrap bought the island in 1911.  He spent 20 years restoring the castle to its former glory.  

We were able to tour the interior of the castle and learn the history of the MacRae family who continues to own this magnificent building.  No photos of the interior were permitted to protect the privacy of the family who continues to use the building throughout the year.

Since the castle juts out into the spot where 3 lochs meet, you can well imagine the beautiful views

Marty was still looking for that sea monster

And, for a minute, it appeared as if he just may have found a couple

We ventured around the grounds of the castle, managing to dodge the raindrops, but were full victims to the heavy winds.  The wind even managed to blow Marty's knit cap off his head!  Luckily he was able to retrieve it between gales!

Around the side of the castle stands this monument to the victims of World War I.  The inscription on the bottom is written by the man who rebuilt the castle, Lt. Col. John Mcrae:

We are the dead, short days ago

 we lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow,

 loved and were loved, and now we lie 

in Flanders Fields.  

Once again, a reminder of how many young men lost their lives in a single battle.

With the weather so cold and blustery, Marty and I decided to stop into the cafe for some tea before continuing our journey.  I took this shot from the cafe window. 

As they say in Scotland, "Brilliant!"

Refreshed and ready to go, we began our travels east, driving along the road which borders one loch after another while weaving in and out of mountain ranges.

We stopped for a photo of the mountain range known as the 5 sisters:

Don't ask me which are the 5 sisters, as there are obviously way more than 5 mountains in this section.  There must be a couple of brothers stuck in there that no one mentions in the tour books.

Finally, we made it to our destination of Fort William and the Berkeley Hotel.

We wasted no time checking in and heading into town to the information center.  The young lady recommended that we check out the Highlander Museum.  It was free admittance, so why not?

What a wealth of information is stored behind those walls!

The very first room that we entered was devoted to the Scottish Commandoes, an elite group of men who were trained in stealth warfare specifically to deal with Hitler's forces during World War II.  This area where we are staying, which was sparsely populated at the time,  became the training ground for this group due to the severity in climate, wild mountains and remote glens.

It was fascinating to learn about the training, and to see that American Rangers trained here as well.

Some of the artifacts were interesting, if not macabre. 

Special guns for warfare

 and a chart detailing body parts, which, when stabbed with a knife, would result in death, and the time it would take for that death to occur.

Something I'm sure I would have never thought would be documented anywhere, but it was one of the training tools that these Commandoes used.

Moving along, we were able to go through the many rooms of Highland history, and, once again, ended up in the Jacobite era room which was filled with many interesting artifacts.  

First, there was a bagpipe that had been played in Bannockburn in 1319, which I found pretty amazing.  I learned that the harp was actually the first musical instrument introduced to Scotland, but this bagpipe obviously had been around for quite a long time!

Included in the collection was a vest from Bonnie Prince Charles

I had seen a similar vest in a different museum.  He must have been leaving his clothes around as he hurried to escape the country after Culloden.

There was, yet again, another lock of his hair on display. Marty made the comment that the guy gave away a lot of his hair.  I can't help but wonder if people snuck a cut in, here and there, as he was sleeping. Surely he didn't have the time to be giving out hair samples for souvenirs!  

Moving on, we decided to check out Inverlochy castle, which stands along the River Lochy just on the outskirts of town.

The castle was built in 1280 by John Comyn.  It has 10 m high angled walls to prevent against scaling ladders, and nearly 10 ft. widths to those walls.   The construction was pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, it was abandoned in 1690 for a wooden fort built nearby, and the ruins have been standing since.  Even Queen Victoria was "unimpressed" when she came to visit.  

Although there was a schematic of what it would have looked like in 1260 when it was first constructed.  

One can only imagine.

By this time, Marty was itching to see Ben Nevis.  As I mentioned, this is the highest mountain in Scotland, and Marty wanted a closer look.

So, we headed off in the direction of the Ben Nevis Visitor center. It was closed when we arrived, but it wasn't too difficult to see where the mountain was.  After all, it is taller than all of the others surrounding it.

But we decided to walk along and get a better view than the one from the parking lot.

I took this view so that you can get the romantic feeling of the stone wall along the fields, with sheep munching away, and Ben Nevis looming in the distance.  The cloud was kind enough to lift so that you can see the cap of the mountain.

Marty took this, so that he could prove that we were there, although it does appear that the mountain is a bit washed out here.  But we look pretty good…..don't you think?

And, this was my favorite, taken from a suspension bridge across the river.  The view was pretty awesome, if you ask me.

By now it was time to head for dinner at a local restaurant.  With today being my birthday, I decided to celebrate and order dessert, which was a sampler of 4 different desserts, along with a cappuccino.

Great idea on my part!

If you think it looks good……you are absolutely right!

And, if you think it was too much…….no way!  I enjoyed every bite!

Until tomorrow…….

Exploring the Western Isle of Skye

Aaahhhh….the weather certainly played games with us today.  But we did manage to get a photo from the front of our B&B while there was a brief reprieve from rain and fog.

Lovely, isn't it?

I do have to tell you that just a few minutes later, those mountains had disappeared from view. 

Dolina, our hostess, said that was quite common for this area, and that she had been hoping that we'd get to see at least a wee bit of those mountains while we were here.  I suppose that we should consider ourselves lucky!

With the wind howling and the changing weather, we bundled up and headed towards the northern part of the island to Dunvegan Castle.

Dunvegan is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland and has been the ancestral home of the Chiefs of Clan MacLeod for 800 years.

The castle stands on Loch Dunvegan, which, as you can see, is the most beautiful shade of blue.

The views from this castle were spectacular

The castle also has 5 acres of gardens which were begun in the 18th century.  There was a beautiful waterfall inside one of the gardens.

 And here you can see it in the background.

There were many flowers still in bloom

A lovely gazebo stands in the walled garden

surrounded by many blooming rose bushes.

Just outside the gardens there is a path to the loch where, on most days, one can take a boat out onto the loch to view the many seals that are in the area.  However, today the tours were cancelled due to the high winds.  We walked down to the dock anyway and we were afforded these fabulous views of the castle from the loch.

Of course, the sudden appearance of blue skies only enhanced the beauty.

Despite the gail winds, Marty was intent on spotting some seals with his binoculars.

but such was not to be.  We decided to head down to the little village of Dunvegan to check it out.

From the parking lot in the village, you can see the memorial to those who died in the Great War overlooking the village.

I don't think I've been to one town in Scotland that hasn't had a memorial to those who died in the First World War.  All of the names of those men from the village who died are inscribed on the memorial. 

After our brief respite, we headed back to the Talisker refinery for the tour that we had booked yesterday.  And, it's a good thing that we had reserved a spot, because the next two tours were booked up!  If you saw how remote this place was, you'd wonder, just as I do, how so many people make their way here.  Perhaps I'd understand it better if I were a Whiskey Connoisseur.  

While we were waiting for the tour to begin,  I heard a woman ask the employee if there was a senior discount.  She shook her head NO, and I heard her say, "If you're old enough to drink whiskey…..then we consider you to be quite lucky".  In other words…..no discount.   That made me laugh.

The tour began promptly, and we went through the process of making whiskey, which was pretty much identical to the tour that we had the other day.  

At the end of the tour, we were given a dram of whiskey and told to swirl it, look at it, sniff it, then take a sip of it.  

I did exactly what the man said, and you can take my word for it when I tell you that nothing made it taste any better. 

This particular whisky is flavored with peat, which is very strong, and definitely affects the smell and the taste.  It made me feel like I was sipping a campfire.  

Well, here's my take on the tasting….described perfectly in the visitor center: 

Smell the seaweed?  Yuck!  No wonder I don't like the stuff!

Marty, on the other hand, loved it.  Lucky him…he got to taste his and mine, which I pretty much figured out would be happening.  No worries there.

We still had a couple hours until dinner time, so we decided to drive to see if we could find the Fairy Pools.  Well, we did manage to find the sign.

And we began the walk down the trail in an attempt to find them.  Notice the term "down the trail"  We hadn't gone far when I realized that the people returning were all breathing heavy and panting.  I began to wonder just what I was getting myself into.  Just how far were these Fairy Pools?

We came to one spot where a returning couple had a bit of difficulty jumping the rocks in the stream to return to the car park. 

That's when I decided that I wasn't going to even try to cross that stream.  I had no difficulty convincing Marty of that, since he certainly didn't want to try to drag my injured body up that hill if I slipped in an attempt to maneuver the rocks!

He was happy enough to take a photo with the Black Cullins (pronounced cool ins) behind us.

Making our way back up to the car park, we spotted these mini waterfalls that had been behind us on the way down.

I have no idea what the Fairy Pools look like, but it seemed to us that we were able to enjoy quite a bit of natural beauty without doing anything crazy.  As it should be!

We headed back to the carpark

and when I peered down, I could see sheep happily munching away on the grass on the side of the road.  They were quite dwarfed by the size of that mountain.

Driving back, we encountered the fluffy creatures along the side of the road

And, some even in the middle of the road.

But they were more than willing to share the road with us.

We opted to try a different hotel for dinner, the only other one within a 12 mile distance from our B&B.  It ended up being quite a disappointment for me, since nearly every food contained some sort of pepper.

When we returned to the B&B, and Dolina heard my plight, she made us a lovely tea tray, complete with home made shortbread.

You just can't beat that, can you?

St. Columba and the Loch Ness Monster

As I write this I am sitting in my B&B on the Isle of Skye gazing out the picture window, watching mountains slowly appear through the white haze, and then disappear at a moment’s notice.

Yep!  Typical Scotland weather.  But, you know what the say…..you can’t change the weather!  So, we’ll just have to go with the flow.

Our morning adventures began with us driving to Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness.

We no sooner arrived when Marty was sure that he had spotted the infamous creature:

 And, you can see that I was so frightened by what I saw that my hair stood on end.

Actually, in all honesty, my hairdo will certainly attest to the fact that it was far more than a wee bit windy today!

But, the truth be told,  we did NOT spot any monsters…at least none in the Loch, for sure.

In fact, Isobel had clued me in on the 3 secrets of Loch Ness:  Waves without Wind (you can forget about that possibility today); Fish without Fins…..can't say that we spotted any, and an island that floats, which I did see on the drive, but did not make any notice as to whether it looked as if it were floating.

So, it appeared that we missed quite a lot!  But we still managed to take a very nice tour of this castle.

By now, you are probably curious about the title of this blog.  Well, legend has it that St. Columba came to this part of Scotland in 565.  When he arrived, a man was being buried, and when he question how the man had died, St. Columba was told that this man had been seized and savagely bitten by a water beast.

At this point, St. Columba ordered one of his companions to swim across the loch to bring back a boat. While this man was swimming across the loch, the water beast began to attack him.   St. Columba raised his hand and commanded the savage beast to release the man and leave, and the creature did as the holy man had commanded.

Pretty good story, if you ask me, and certainly the first time I had heard about this accounting of the Loch Ness Monster.

Despite the overcast skies and intermittent weather, I was to capture a few photos

 Urquhart Castle is famous for being the largest castle in Scotland, although it has been ruins for many centuries.   It was the MacDonald clan that can be attributed to the destruction of this famous castle.  Now, that certainly is unfortunate!  They were notorious for rioting and destroying lands that did not belong to them, Urquhart included. 

Marty managed to get a photo of the two of us prior to us leaving.

After leaving the castle, we headed to our next destination, the Isle of Skye.

One thing that I forgot to mention about this area of Scotland is that the Gaelic language is still spoken here, and all of the signs are written in both English and Gaelic.  Many of the local mountains and villages have names stemming from Gaelic.  It certainly has been interesting seeing this second language in print here in this area of Scotland. 

We found ourselves traveling in the company of clouds and rain, but occasionally managed to stop to get a photo here and there of the landscape.

Once over the bridge, onto the Isle of Skye, we stopped in Broadhead to take in the beauty of this rainbow over the loch. 

The photo just doesn’t not do justice to the original.  It was shining brilliantly on both ends. 

We popped into the Talisker distillery since it was on the road to our destination.  

The place was crowded with people.  It appears that it fills daily with German tour groups.  It’s the only distillery on the island, and when it rains, it apparently becomes a main attraction.

Unfortunately, rain is predicted again for tomorrow.

But, we went ahead and reserved a 3:00 tour so that we could be sure to take the tour, to see what the different technique is in using peat to make this brand of whiskey.   When we toured the Dalwhinnie distillery, our tour guide had mentioned that while their whiskey was complimented with chocolate, this particular whiskey pairs well with smoked fish.

I’m fairly certain that this taste testing won’t be appealing to my taste buds.  But, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see.

Our B&B here on the isle is an original Croft house.  The owner is very welcoming and even made us tea with some baked treats when we arrived.   This area is a bit more remote than any other area where we have ventured in Scotland.  The roads are only one lane wide with pull offs every few hundred feet so that one can pull over and let the car driving in the opposite direction drive through.

Most people are pretty eager to pull over and flash their lights, indicating that it is OK for you to continue on the road.  But, as with most things, there is the occasional obnoxious driver, or the huge delivery truck, driving way too fast and obviously not giving way for anyone.  So, one must be able to stop quickly and pull over.  It's a little nerve wracking when Marty has to veer to the left and I'm staring down a steep cliff!  So…my knuckles are just a bit white.  

Also, there is only one restaurant in the nearby town.   It is located in the Old Inn.

There were only about 5 entrees on the menu, none of which appealed to me, so I opted to order 2 starters:  the soup of the day, broccoli and leek; and prawns broiled in garlic butter with a small side salad.  Since the fish is fresh caught from the loch, I thought it would be worth at least trying.

Apparently my definition of prawns differs from the Scottish definition.  I became a bit suspicious when the waitress brought me a bowl of hot water with a lemon floating in it, and an extra empty bowl, as well a shell cracker and little fork.

Well, my curiosity was tempered when the plate arrived and there were 3 miniature lobsters staring at me from the bowl.

I generally do not eat anything that is staring at me, but I somehow managed to pull the meat out of the main shell, and I can tell you that it was really good!

I’ll let you see the leftovers:

Weren't they cute?

Although that was certainly an interesting experience, I’m not really interested in repeating that for tomorrow’s dinner.

The wind is howling and the rain is pelting.  Here's hoping that tomorrow will be filled with some pleasant surprises!

I'll keep you posted.