New Thing #81 - L/S/I, Day 8 - Scottish Highlands

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Curtains are the greatest thing ever. Even though we had to be up early to get ready for our excursion today, it was nice not being woken up earlier than necessary. Our hostel served free breakfast of cereal, toast and juice. This would prove to be a hostel staple, but at least it was free and gave us some sustenance.

We had an excursion booked today to see the Scottish Highlands, including Loch Lomond, Loch Ness and Inverness. I was pretty excited for this trip, as I've always wanted to see the Highlands. We walked to our pickup point, which wasn't too far from our hostel, and hopped on board with the rest of our tour group. Fortunately, it was a small bus, so we wouldn't be out and about with a ton of people. We did have a family with some small crabby children who were mildly annoying, but they were tolerable.

The weather here was much closer to what I had expected for Scotland. Cold, rainy, dreary. We really lucked out in Edinburgh the past two days. Our tour guide's name was Juliet, and she was absolutely fabulous. She had the most endearing Scottish accent, and she was incredibly knowledgeable in all things Scotland. Politics, history, culture, agriculture, you name it. I couldn't even begin to recite all of the information she gave us. Mostly because there was so much, but also because at times, her voice lulled us into a peaceful dreamlike state. Between the dreary weather, the soft rocking of the bus, her voice, and the calming Scottish music she played, we didn't stand a chance.

I should tell you now that one of my bucket list items for coming to Scotland was to frolic in a field of heather. I'm not really sure of my family's heritage, although there is a possibility we're partly Scottish, but my name is derived from the famous flower, native to Scotland. I even have a tattoo of heather that I wanted to compare to the real thing. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked. Until Juliet informed me that heather is only in bloom in August and September, and for the other ten months out of the year, it's just a dead brownish looking plant. Well, shit. I guess I'll have to come back to Scotland! Juliet also informed us that heather is a pretty versatile plant/flower. It's used in everything from food for animals, a fragrant ingredient in soaps and whiskey, and is even used to make tile. That's just the tip of the iceberg of what heather provides. You're welcome, world.

I don't remember most of the important things about the scenery we saw, but I'm sure you don't care anyways. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Speeding by the Scottish countryside.

Despite the dreary skies, I still found the scenery to be quite beautiful.

Loch Lomond. One of the larger lochs (lakes) in Scotland.

Still driving around Loch Lomond.

Finally stopping at Loch Lomond for a potty break and photo op.

Beautiful.

Too bad it's so dark. It looks like we're standing in front of a backdrop.

Having fun in Scotland.

The further north we went, the higher the mountains were. Hence, why they're called the Highlands (vs. what southern Scotland is called: the Lowlands).

We were driving past this little area and Juliet pointed out that the purple on the right is cultivated heather. It's grown to bloom at a different time than the natural heather from the hillsides. This was as close as I ever got!

I loved the cloud cover on the mountains.

Yep. This happened.

Random Scot playing for money while we stopped for photo ops.

We made a quick pit stop to feed the friendly red deer.

They were very friendly.

That brown on the hillside is out of season heather.

First glimpse of Loch Ness.

Seems like the perfect weather to check out the infamous Loch Ness.

Before we made it to our Loch Ness destination point, we stopped at Fort Augustus to have some lunch. There were a few different options, and we went with The Bothy, a quaint little restaurant that seemed to have more servers than was needed for the small crowd inside.

Tomato and herb toastie with cheese and mushrooms, with a side salad and boiled potatoes. It was surprisingly good, and it was nice to not have chips! We also saw packets of something called "Salad Cream" that basically tasted like a liquidy form of the stuff you put inside deviled eggs. I don't recommend it.

We found Nessie!

In Fort Augustus.

This was our small tour bus.

Small and cozy, but the seats were comfortable. We didn't realize until the end of the day that the seats reclined.

Ready to go find Nessie!

The shore of Loch Ness. We searched really hard, but never saw the ol' girl.

They had many interpretations of what people think she looks like.

No Nessie, but I did have a Flat Nate sighting.

This interpretation was much scarier. I'm not sure why I'm snuggled up against Brenda, but it looks like Nikki is our chaperone.

So, we had two options at Loch Ness. We could pay for a boat ride around the Loch, or we could spend that time inside the inn/restaurant/gift shop. Guess which one we chose.

So,  yeah, if you guessed that we stayed behind, in the warmth of the gift shop, you would be correct. At this point in the afternoon, it was pretty cold out, the rain had picked up, along with the wind, so we had no desire to spend the afternoon on the deck of a boat freezing our knickers off. It's possible that we should have gone so I wouldn't have spent as much money in the gift shop as I did. I think I spent a solid hour walking around trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to get. With all of the heather related memorabilia, I was in heaven. My favorite purchase was a children's book called Heather, the Highland Cow. It's a lovely adventure of a cow named Heather who meets a polar bear in a red hat named Conrad who helps her get back home. I'll have a nice keepsake for my children one day.

After we had exhausted every single souvenir, we waited for the rest of our tour group to get back while we had a snack. Creme brûlée with berries and shortbread. Yum! The water was pretty terrible though. I really do miss fresh out of the tap water when I'm on these European trips.

So good!!

Back on the bus, and we drove through Inverness, the northernmost city in the UK/Scotland and what is considered to be the capital of the Scottish Highlands. It seemed pretty, but we didn't really get to see much of it. Another two hour drive later, and we stopped in Pitlochry for another potty and snack break. We couldn't find a public bathroom, so we ended up having to pay to use one. I find that to be ridiculous. When you gotta go, you gotta go. You shouldn't have to pay to use a bathroom. But, at least it wasn't very expensive. Pitlochry was a cute little town, but by this point, I was kind of ready to be off the bus and back in our hostel. We would still have another two hour drive back to Glasgow though.

Brown heather and it's started to rain.

This castle had some significance. I can't remember what it was though. :(

Back in Glasgow!

You can kind of see our tour drawn on the map.

When we arrived back in Glasgow and said goodbye to Juliet, Nikki and I found that we were starving. Shocking. So finding a restaurant was a top priority for us. Since we weren't that familiar with Glasgow, we weren't entirely sure if we were even in a decent neighborhood. After a little bit of a walk around, we found a cute little Italian place. It's a good thing too, because it was raining. Again. Stupid effing rain.

Pretty sure this was a chain, but we didn't care.

Caesar salad with a mezzaluna salsa rosa: pasta filled with ricotta and spinach in a creamy tomato sauce. It was delicious!

Peroni! I had to go with an Italian beer with our Italian feast.

After riding around and napping in a bus all day, it's amazing we were as tired as we were. We weren't really feeling like enjoying our Saturday night out in Glasgow. Mainly because we were tired, but also because there was some kind of zombie party going on in the neighborhood, and hooligans were running around town seriously dressed as zombies. Crazy Glaswegians. (Yes, if you're from Glasgow, you're called a Glaswegian. I'm kind of jealous of that.)

Back in the room and we started packing - again - and prepped for our Sunday flight to Ireland, and were all out by 11:30. It's a good thing brought ear plugs, because the zombies and the hostel dwellers were out of control. Man, I was glad to be leaving Glasgow in less than 24 hours!