Jen and Rebecca Find the Crowded Tourist Sites

R: Friday morning we started out at Eilean Donan, as our hotel conveniently overlooked this castle, the most photographed of all in Scotland, some say. But it seems to be a pretty big deal to tout your site as “the most” something, so who knows if this is really true. It is indeed picturesque, but frankly, leaving the western highlands apparently meant we found where all the tourists were hiding. It was pretty crowded, and we rushed across the bridge to beat the tour bus population into the castle. The castle had been rebuilt in the early 20th century as a summer home for the owners, but we also learned about the castle history. A nice castle visit, I think.

J: I did enjoy the castle, but was saddened by the sudden influx of tourists, just the night before we had been the only ones and now I had to share my adventures with a crowd? After Eilean Donan, we had a long drive to central Scotland and Loch Ness. As everyone now knows, I do love the modern sites as much as the historical, so I was very happy when we got to stop at one of the northern points of the Caledonian Canal. We didn’t get to see a large cruise ship move through this time, but we did get to see the swing bridge in motion so that a small boat could sail into the lake.

R: At the canals at Fort Augustus, we got our first glimpse of Loch Ness, but we decided to save our Nessie-watch for after lunch, when we stopped at Urquhart Castle. This was a castle ruin, which in general we have liked a lot on this trip, but this particular ruin was filled with people other than us, which made it a little less exciting. We still wandered through as many inches as we could, watching for Nessie out of our peripheral vision, at least…

Too many tourists at Urqhart Castle

Managed to take a photo without other tourists in the background!

J: We did have a fun photo shoot attempting to eliminate the existence of all other visitors to the castle. I think we succeeded in making it look like we were the only ones there in one or two shots…Once we had finished with all of the fun to be found at Urquhart Castle, we moved up the road to the Loch Ness Visitor Center for a bit of Nessie shopping and site-seeing, but as we over-heard at lunch, she’s on vacation at Manchester, so I wasn’t holding out much hope.

Shaun in search of Nessie

R: Sadly, we didn’t see her, but we left as believers, nonetheless! We continued on our journey with just enough time to have a tasting at the Moniack Winery before it closed (though the shop girls had already gone home for the day, so the nice owner, who doesn’t know how to use the credit card machine, was kind enough to let us in anyway.) We had a few sips of cherry, plum, elderflower, and silver birch wines, plus a few flavored brandies as well—all wines made with primarily Highland ingredients, not from grapes.

J: We didn’t have hotel reservations, so an hour or so and 2 bad moods later we finally found accommodations at the Thistle Hotel. It was an over-priced Holiday Inn, but at that point, we were willing to take what we could get. Our moods did improve after a pint and an order of potato skins, but it was a still an early night with the hopes of a better Saturday.

R: Who knew there would be so many people in Inverness for a late September holiday? I blame it on the shinty tourney happening the next day. Inverness was the only town we didn’t pre-book a hotel and the only place where we didn’t see “vacancy” signs in a lot of B&B windows. Go figure.