Loch Ness to Loch Claunie

We then cruised by Loch Ness, where we saw no evidence of the monster. It must have been hiding. The water was very dark and apparently Loch Ness is very deep, so the monster has plenty of places to hide!

Rain threatened. No surprise there. This is summer?There were plenty of fiberglass monsters on the roadside, photo ready.
Nessie attacks B.
Look out! Another Nessie!
We pressed west towards the Isle of Skye; en route stopping at Urquhart castle, which was extremely crowded and touristy. The crowds wore on my patience a bit.We drove by Loch Claunie as the clouds rolled in. We stopped for the night at this place. What a long day of driving it was. But the views were gorgeous.

Scotland continued

The next day was our long driving day. Have I mentioned that we rented a car for a week? It turned out to be cheaper vis-a-vis the insurance to have only 1 person do the driving, so B drove all week long on the wrong side of the road. The first hour getting out of Edinburgh was the most stressful. I thought he was going to have an anxiety attack, or perhaps give me one. After that it wasn't so bad, although every now and then we had to dodge the other tourists on the road who would forget which way to look or were creeping over to the right side.

The Scots appear to be fond of road signs in general. They have put signs up, when you pull out of any tourist spot, which say, "Drive on the left. Conduisez a gauche." etc, etc in several other languages as well; they are no fools. There are also other signs telling you to drive a safe speed, don't follow too close, gas up, "Tiredness can kill," yadda yadda. After a week it all seemed a little tiresome. I'm used to France where people aren't bossy.

We missed the turn on the highway out of Pitlochry and ended up driving through Inverness. But the countryside was gorgeous, and even though it was our longest driving day, we saw such beautiful scenery!

Lots of peat, everywhere.

So much for that

It too cloudy this morning to see the solar eclipse. Grrrr.

Pitlochry

That night we pressed on to Pitlochry, a quaint little town in the highlands. We decided to go there after reading this article in the NY Times about independent whisky bottlers in Scotland. The distillery is owned by the Signatory bottling company, which sells all kinds a rare whiskies from all over, available to sample in the tasting room. It was a fun tour. Lo and behold, I found out that I prefer the peaty, smoky whiskies of Islay to the other types. Voila!

The dude in the kilt at the entrance was our tour guide.
We made it!
The stream on the grounds is used to cool the whisky after the distilling process.
OK, so we got a little drunk from the tasting.Below is the town of Pitlochry, highland tourist uber-mecca. The night we were there we went out to a local pub for a round of pool, and we got to watch Scots get drunk and sing karaoke. B's karaoke standard is some old country-rock song that wasn't on their list of available tunes, and I would only sing if he sang, so we chickened out of the singing. Those Scots didn't know what they were missing.

There is no shortage of sheep schwag in that town.

Monty pilgrimage

After that we swung by Doune castle. Does this look familiar?Here is a hint.
Voila!


Cue your own Monty Python recital.

Wallace monument

The next day we woke up and headed over to the Wallace monument, a serious trek uphill. They built the monument at the highest point overlooking the site of the battle of Stirling Bridge, where in 1297, William Wallace's outnumbered Scots defeated the English army. Wallace was later caught by the English, hung until partially suffocated, disemboweled, decapitated, drawn and quartered, and differing pieces of his body were sent to different Scottish towns, to put on display, in case the message wasn't clear yet.

Here is the monument, from the bottom of the hill.
Here is Wallace himself, ready to leap out and kick the English army to the kerb. Inside the monument was his sword, which was very large; he must have been quite tall and strong.
It was extremely windy up there.

Below the monument you can see the battle site at the Forth river. The Forth traditionally separates the lowlands from the highlands.

Stirling

As the rainclouds moved in, we pressed on to Stirling. It never actually rained that day, but it certainly looked like it was going to. Different buildings at Stirling castle were built at different times, so they look quite distinct.

This building made of lighter stone is the great hall, built in the early 1500s by James IV. According to our tour guide, it was pretty much designed to keep all of his courtiers in awe of him. Inside the room, the king and queen spent their time on a raised dais so as to always be 6 inches higher than everyone else.
They did have a great view of the surrounding area. In Europe, to ascend a hill is to find a castle or church.
The statue outside the castle is of Robert the Bruce, ever keeping watch in case those naughty English come back.