We went over to Laroch for dinner. It didn’t take reservations but we always eat dinner early anyway and didn’t have a problem getting a table. We all had the “steak burgers” and both J and I felt pretty terrible after eating. I just felt nauseous but J felt worse. Sam laughed because she felt “fine” (since everything goes through her bag anyway). Lucky girl (for now, I guess!).
I slept pretty great and got up at 7 to do a workout and meditate. I then went out and grabbed coffee for J and ended up seeing a breakfast buffet and grabbed some croissants (for them) and eggs for me which worked out well.
I wanted to go on a walk and Sam wanted to come with me. J wanted to walk but the timing didn’t work out if we waited, so we went without him. We decided to go the other way, which walked straight up the hill and then curved around, ultimately we could circle back down to where we were the afternoon before. It was a short but perfect morning walk. The sun was out…
We got back and jumped in the car and got on our way.
So we were next to Loch Levan in Glencoe and once we got on the road we followed it around which turned into Loch Liney.
It was such a nice drive up past Fort William and following all these Loch’s as we drove north towards Inverness. The small residential areas, the wildlife, the sheep, horses, and goats!
The Loch we were driving past for awhile was Loch Locky which was a crack-up. Lake of Lakes!
I think we only drove past one area that had some large commercial buildings and shopping centers. Sam said it was giving Alaska vibes but was definitely not Alaska.
At some point we drove past a little inlet that J said was called “Bay of Castles“ on Google, I think, which was next to Loch Oich. I will say the difference between the GPS giving instructions and J giving me instructions is wildly different and I went past the (dirt road) turn-off so I ended up turning around a short ways ahead when I felt safe to do so and it was a little off-road adventure to this deserted and run-down small castle. It’s crazy that they just leave these castles standing, or crumbling, as it was. There was a very old abandoned boat at the bottom of the lake that was dilapidated and half in the water.
I wish I could easily add pictures, haha. I will have to come back and add them later.
We got back on the road and there was one more place that we stopped – which I refused to stop at the first 3 pull-outs because the pull-outs were on the OTHER side of the road! But the next one I pulled out and we got out and took some photos. The sun was shining and it was simply gorgeous.
What a great drive!
We finally arrived at Urquart castle. I say finally, as it was about an hour and a half drive, or maybe 2 hours with our stops. Not that bad!
The castle was awesome. I don’t know why I felt like we should be inside at castles but it was SO WINDY when we were there. Gale force winds. We enjoyed wandering around the broken down areas and reading some of the help guides at each area. I couldn’t get the audio ap to work on my phone. No service and the Wi-Fi up at the help center didn’t reach down. I sort of shrugged, while I’ve enjoyed going with a guide and having them tell me fun facts, I’m not a huge audio guide walk around person either and my two companions definitely were not. But we enjoyed wandering around and taking photos. I could just imagine the castle built up and the view of the water… Gorgeous! I also now want to go back and read all my old Highland romances from Jude Deveraux and Julie Garwood, haha.
Oh yes, the castle was on Loch Ness too! We could have gone to the visitors center but I don’t think that there were any takers for it and I didn’t have a huge desire to go explore it – other than maybe buy a t-shirt.
We did not manage to get G a Nessie shirt. We actually didn’t get much souvenir shopping at all really anywhere in Scotland!
We hopped back in the car and drove another 30m to our apartment. I was impressed with myself, I braved driving “downtown” and veered off from the GPS directions because I wanted to see downtown.
It wasn’t anything super impressive. The shops looked a little.. seedy? Edinburgh was definitely more tourist friendly.
Dad and Cindy had been wandering around for a few hours because their house took a long time to get ready but we heard they were finally checked in.
I wanted to go “shopping” at Inverness as I had checked Google maps and saw two shops closing at 6 but when we finally managed to figure out taxis, we got there around 540 and everything was closed.
Oh well. Sam wanted to “walk through a hotel and go up the elevator and down” so I was like.. sure! But we walked in and I got entranced by the river view. I suggested going to another restaurant and getting a drink/apps but after seeing the river we decided to go to Mustard Seed and sit at the bar butttt our table was ready! So ordered a drink and ap there and waited 15m for the Morrison’s to show up.
It was a lovely dinner. Great to see my Dad and Cindy. Sam was on our side and then she got up and spent 15m standing talking to Kara and Kyle, and then I told Dad and Cindy to move over so Sam could sit next to Kara. Ryan is such a good conversationalist and I heard him and J talking for awhile. It was a lovely evening.
Uber didn’t work so the taxi situation was weird but as Cindy stole my taxi (ha), we ended up going outside and randomly hailing a cab which worked out. We completely forgot to stop at the store for water and breakfast but oh well. Home was lovely and while we completely overheated during the night it was fine.
Oooh, and the small issue of the door being impossible to open… anyway. It was fine. The place was actually super cute and workable.
I think I was fiddling around with the blog at night but went to bed at a decent out, woke up the next morning and got a short workout in, took J to find coffee and croissants, and then we got ready for our tour adventure with the Morrison’s!
Comments on this entry are closed.