We didn't really start our Edinburgh time until a couple days later because Saturday morning we got up early for an 8:45 meet up time to hop on a bus and begin our 2-day tour of the Highlands.
We met up in Parliment Square, next to St. Giles Cathedral.
No time to go inside (I don't even know if it was open), but we planned to come back in a couple days.
Our tour guide, Keith, was very Scottish and made the whole experience incredible!
And right after we got on the bus, a parade came through, closing the street for about 15 minutes, which apparently no one knew anything about. I think Keith was a little frustrated because he had a lot of things planned for us that day, but we got on the road with only a slight delay.
Keith told us stories about the history of Edinburgh as we left, both modern and ancient, pointing out the street JK Rowling lives on, and other interesting buildings. He played Scottish music for us between stories and explanations of things like politics and customs. It brought a lot more to our touring than we get when we do this all on our own.
And first stop was an ancient area full of ruins that are older than Stonehenge. Not as big as Stonehenge, but also more accessible.
The Clava Cairns are a 4000 year old burial ground that, similar to the Mayan ruins, are oriented to line up with the sun at the solstices.
This was a cool stop.
I'm such a fan of the stone walls--they are my favorite, and according to Keith, being able to build these dry stone walls is kind of a dying art. I might need to pick up a new hobby.
Then, we drove for awhile with more history stories, to the battlefield of Culloden, the last battle of the 1745 Jacobite Rising.
They had monuments for the various clans, like this one for the MacLeans (which was the closest to McClellan I found.)
And the Stewarts--it's fun to see my family represented, although not so nice to think of how many lost their lives at this site
It was beautiful walking around the moor--reminded me a lot of Gettysburg.
Then, Keith dropped us off at the Clansman Hotel
where we took a boat ride on Loch Ness.
One of my favorite transportations on the trip,
And lots of photo ops during the short ride.
It was very overcast again, but not really raining (we seriously got so lucky!) It was really green--would have been even more beautiful if it had been sunny, but it probably isn't very often.
We tried to find Nessie, but no luck. There is actually a $25,000 pound reward for proof of the Loch Ness monster.
But the real purpose for the boat--it dropped us off at the Urquhart Castle which was so cool--right on the edge of the lake,
and it's just ruins now.
We had a really good time wandering around, reading plaques and exploring.
Seeing a castle restored to how it would have been when people lived in it is interesting, but seeing it like this is also really cool.
This stop was an add-on to the tour, but I'm really glad we did it.
The whole place was beautiful!
There are a couple spots that are still enclosed.
We found a bird nest in one alcove--they were hard to miss, what with all the squawking for food. Peanut watched until the mama came back to be sure they were okay. Hard to believe any bird would feel safe building a nest where so many people are walking by.
Saw a lot of Eurasian Magpies, too. I didn't get a great picture of any of them, but they are beautiful! It was fun adding some new birds to my bird list!
This was our last tour stop for the day.
And people crashed during the last drive to get us to Fort Augustus where we were staying for the night.
The Caledonian Canal and its system of locks are used to connect several of the Scottish lochs for navigation. We were staying right next to the locks.
This was one of our favorite places. The kids had their own room with bunk beds that were fairly comfortable, and while still not perfect, Daddy-o and I had a pretty comfortable bed, too. It was a nice place.
Once we got our stuff settled, we went out to find dinner.
Lots of cute places. We ate at the Bothy,
where everyone but Bean tried haggis. Bug was the only one who actually ate a lot of it.
And funny story about dinner--Peanut had not fully decided what he wanted, but Daddy-o told the server that we were ready to order anyway. Well, joke was on him because when it came time for Peanut to order, he just repeated what Daddy-o had ordered right before him, which was a rather expensive steak dinner. He did eat it all, but we had a conversation after that about not ordering the most expensive item on the menu unless you are the one paying, haha.
Bug is too tall for a lot of these old places.
After dinner, we went for a walk. We've been doing a lot of after dinner walks and they're so nice. And especially since it stays light so late, it's easy to just keep wandering.
Found a couple mushrooms!
A little adventure along the lock system,
it was so beautiful.
Lovely end to a lovely day.
