Our Adventure in Scotland!: Loch Ness and Inverness

We were out of the house by 9:10 and drove directly to Urquhart Castle on the shores of the Loch Ness. The ruins of the castle were beautiful, the scenery was gorgeous, there was a lot of really interesting information available including a movie. We wandered around and took a lot of pictures of the Castle ruins. The Loch Ness itself is beautiful!

The whole next bunch of pictures were taken at Urquart Castle with the Loch Ness in the background.

Afterwards, we drove over to the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition and took a cheesy tour explaining the research throughout history to try to find if there actually is a monster hiding under the waters. We didn't see one!

We then went into the small town nearby, wandered in and out of some souvenir shops, and had a nice lunch outside on this beautiful, warm, sunny day.

David had haggis and blood pudding quiche. Tasted better than it sounds!

I had mentioned to a local artist that we were looking to take pictures of some 'hairy coos' and she directed us to a restaurant nearby where they have some of them penned up outside that you can get close to, so that was our next stop. We were able to get just a few feet away (but safely behind barbed wire) and took a lot of pictures.

Back into the car where we drove to the Tomatin Whisky Distillery where David had a taste and I sipped water. Unfortunately, all of their tours were booked up. And yes, he bought a bottle. Slàinte Mhath!

At Tomatin Distillery

Sipping a wee whisky

We headed back into Inverness to see Abertarff House, but unfortunately, it's only open 4 days a week and today isn't one of them. We also walked over to Inverness Castle which is closed for renovations. I hoped to take a picture of the outside, but it's pretty much behind walls. So we settled for walking around Inverness a bit, then to our local pub, the Innes, for an end of afternoon cocktail and home for a nap!

Abertarff House, built in 1593, the oldest surviving house in Inverness.

Across the river in Inverness

Downtown Inverness

Inverness Castle

Finally, one interesting thing I noticed was that as we entered the Scottish Highlands, many signs were written in both English and Gaelic.

Bilingual road sign

Tonight's dinner was at Prime Steak and Seafood! When we parked the car we immediately saw a much better view of Inverness Castle just across the river. Then a fantastic dinner, starting with wine, then cullen skink soup (sooooo good, like a fish chowder!!), followed by steak and then sticky toffee pudding for dessert!