October 15, 2006

We left around 9:50 for the tour. Our guide was George. The bus left at 10:30 and we made our way to Loch Ness and the cruise to Urquhart Castle. Both are brillant! We saw a lovely film about the history of the castle and at the end the the screen went up and the curtains opened and revealed the actual castle!! This castle is old and full of history and was destroyed by the Scots themselves to prevent the English from ever occupying it.

My only complaint is 'not enough time'. We could have used another 30 minutes at least to visit the gift shop and just to be there. We got back on the bus and drove to the Loch Ness Experience 2000. It was a six room tour thing to disprove/prove the Loch Ness Monster theory. The bottom line Nessie is there because we saw her! So no more 'theories' and as well, not enough time for the gift shop!! And this time we had to run to bus - we were the last ones to board.

We drove back to Inverness because not everyone was taking part in the second part of the tour. We had to get off the bus, wait 20 minutes and then get back on again. We left at 2:30. Culloden was amazing, so quiet, sad, very solemn - it was a beautiful hour. I kissed Scotland in front of where the Frasers stood in line prepared for battle against the government (made up of the English and the Scottish, which I did not realize...). It looks exactly as it did over 260 years ago.

The gift shop was very good - for this part of the tour we had lots of time to appreciate the site and the souvenirs! Next stop - the Clava Cairns! This was brilliant (as you may have noticed pretty much everything we have seen is brilliant or amazing!). Four thousand years old cairns that really come into their own on December 21. I would love to be there on that day and Halloween. There were some huge stones, and I was looking for the portal to get to 'Jamie'! It was very peaceful and calming.

We got back to the guesthouse after 5 and had a glass of port. We went for a walk along the River Ness before going to the Westend Chippy for the best fish 'n chips ever! I had the Scottish Haddock fish and it was so tasty and good!
Another Top List - Top 100 Albums of All Time and #1 was Radiohead. Bah.