Day 9 - Inverness and Loch Ness

This is where we stayed in Inverness, Scotland. The Trafford Bank guest house is a few yards from the Caledonian Canal, and about a 3/4 mile walk from the River Ness and the center of Inverness.

The entry porch was sort of a greenhouse, and it had a grapevine that snaked up one corner and spread across the entire inside of the glass ceiling, where bunches of grapes were ripening. I complimented the owner on it one afternoon, and he said he couldn't take credit, it had been planted a hundred years ago.

The guy who owned it was really into being the host of his Bed & Breakfast. Every evening, when his guests came in at the end of their day, he'd ask if they'd like a dram (we always would), and he'd pour some Scotch whiskey and sit in the guest lounge chatting and sipping. In the mornings he'd cook a full Scottish breakfast, with the best coffee I've had in ages, and a selection of sausages - whatever had been fresh at the sausage market. One morning, dressed in a kilt, he offered sausage made with Haggis. I tried it, but whatever the taste was, it was subtle enough that I couldn't taste a difference from ordinary sausage.

We highly recommend the Trafford Bank guest house!

The Trafford Bank was a short walk to the Caledonian Canal, which makes use of Loch Ness to cut entirely across Scotland. These are the Muirstown Locks (I think) on the canal. They're operated mechanically now, but you can see where they were designed to be run by horse power.

BritRail sold us a "Pass 'N Drive" package with three days of train travel and two days of car rental. We picked up a car in Inverness, in order to see Loch Ness, and to play with driving on the wrong side of the road. The car was a cozy fit for two kids and three grown-ups. We stopped at Urquhart Castle, on the shore of Loch Ness, on a fine Scottish summer day. We didn't see any monsters, but we brought two of our own.

It rained on us a little in the morning. Susan found a place to hide from the rain, though.

Someday, there'll be a nice visitor's center in the right side of this picture!

There's nothing like a long, narrow lake surrounded by mountains to make a Tornado pilot feel like stepping on the gas a little... The ruins of Urquhart Castle are a nice juxtaposition.

The Official Loch Ness visitor's center was better than it was in 1983. I remembered a tacky, touristy, place that promoted the monster shamelessly. Now there's a large multimedia show that takes a thorough, skeptical look at all the most famous photos and other evidence of the monster. There's still plenty of things to sell to the tourists, but I didn't find it so tacky when they're a little more honest. And they do have a neat little pond set up, to pose pictures in front of.

After we'd looked at Urquhart Castle and the Official Loch Ness Monster Center, we poked around looking for a spot to have our picnic leftovers from the train. This is a small park in Drumnadrochit. It didn't overlook the Loch as I would have liked, but it was pretty, and we had a nice break. (It wasn't as stormy as this picture indicates, my camera was too dark on many of the exposures.)

(Drumnadrochit has THREE web sites, for a town of about 1000 people. They are Drumnadrochit.com, Drumnadrochit.co.uk, and Drumnadrochit.org.uk. Something tells me these web sites aren't on the best of terms with each other.)

After lunch, we went to Cawdor Castle, east of Inverness. This was a disappointment, partially because we were following a huge horde of German tourists through the castle. Also, it wasn't much fun, because it had been used as a residence until very recently, and had much modern design inside.

The gardens were lovely, though, and they had a hedge maze, which is cool. Unfortunately, it wasn't open to the public, due to the potential for damage to the roots. I guess that's understandable.

The last night we were in Inverness, the guy at our B&B offered a recommendation for a restaurant for dinner. He sent us to 'Riva', in the center of town, on the River Ness. I remember it as being very good, so drop in next time you're there.