Scotland: The Highlands

At the Neutrons for Life Sciences conference a few months back, one of the speakers there was from Scotland, Glasgow to be specific.  When she and I had talked about the ICNS conference in Edinburgh, she had insisted that I take a day off and enjoy the city.  On Thursday, I did just that.  When we had checked into the hotel on first getting there, Chris had picked up a brochure about traveling the countryside.  Seeing as how we had never been there, and who knows if we will ever get to go back, we thought it best to seize the moment and see as much of the country as possible.  We signed up for the Loch Ness Highland tour.

Strap in for this post, by the way.  We took almost 500 pictures on this day.  I will try to keep to about 200 here, but there's a lot to show!

We had to be on the Royal Mile by 7:45 AM.  What we didn't realize till we got on the tour bus was exactly how much ground we were going to cover.  The bus driver made it very clear that he was on an extremely strict time schedule and if you weren't back at the bus when it was time to leave - too bad for you!

We had prepared for our trip by hitting up the grocery the night before, so we would have snacks and water.  The tour was from 8AM to 8PM, and that's a long time to not know when your next bit of food is coming.  Our first glimpse at the scenery outside of the city made us so happy.  Scotland is hilly and has lots of evergreen trees.  It was a lot like being in Tennessee.  I'm not sure I realized how much I had missed the rolling hills until I saw this landscape and was instantly happy.

What looks like fog in this picture is called haar.  It is a thick fog from the North Sea.  The water droplets in a haar are much larger than in fog.  We saw haar in Edinburgh the first day, but the weather was so good after that, we didn't see anymore.  They say when you walk through it, you actually get wet.  It's like misty rain that is just suspended in the air.

We stopped about an hour into the drive for a restroom break and to stock up on some food if need be.  The village was so adorable.  The way it was built into the hills, it actually felt a little like Gatlinburg with the "smokey" look from the haar.  Although the buildings were a lot prettier here, and there were way less overweight Americans walking around.

 At this point you could buy tickets for a boat tour around Loch Ness.  We did!  Then it was off to catch the boat.  We learned a few Gaelic derived words, such as, loch means lake, glen means valley, and ben means mountain.  The sun made it's way through the haar and we made our way into the highlands.

The whole time we were in the bus we were either listening to Scottish music (sometimes quite painful) or stories about the history.  Of course, mostly it was battle history about the Scots fighting for religious freedom from the English.  It seems that the highlanders were happy to keep their clan law, which meant honor and toughness, but most importantly they could remain pagan or Catholic.  However the noble Scots were fine to side with the Church of England, because they were getting paid to allow England to take control of the land.  The last bit of rebels were referred to as the Jacobites.   The Jacobite risings lasted for about 50 years.  They were attempting to restore the Stuarts to the Scottish throne.  A number of significant and costly battles were pointed out to us along the way.

The highlands have always been a notoriously wild and untamed place.  It was a very hard way of life in large part due to the harsh weather and terrain.  It hasn't been overly settled since.  There is one road that runs through the highlands and it is a narrow, windy road that would very much remind you of back roads in Roane County, and the way the driver drove them, would remind you very much of the way I drove down highway 70 between the my house in Kingston and the Cricket when I was late for work, or for getting home =)  There were a few times I thought I might lose Chris.  When we got to Loch Ness he was happy to set feet on the ground.  We took a lot of pictures here.  Let me know if you see any suspicious features in the waters!

This next picture seems super random, I know, but I had to get a picture of this girl.  She took as many selfies on this trip as we took of scenery.  She would flip her hair, she would pose, she would move from one part of the boat to the other, she would giggle, it was great entertainment.  And it wasn't just on this boat trip.  She was like this at every stop! Wonder if she ever got the perfect pic to update her FaceBook profile with.

Of course, we took a few ourselves.

This is called the witches' rock.  Legend has it that two witches lived on opposite sides of Loch Ness from each other, and they hated each other.  The grudge escalated over the years until one day they started throwing rocks at each other.  There is a chunk of the mountain up behind this rock that looks bashed in.  This rock was said to have done that damage and landed here.

No tourist destination is complete without at least one replication of the thing that makes it so famous. Our driver did assure us that the real Nessie does in fact show herself two times a day, 10 minutes before he arrives, and 5 minutes after he leaves.

It was back on the bus and off to Ben Nevis.  Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles at 1344 m or 4409 ft (for comparison, Clingmans Dome is 6643 ft). It is very rare that anyone ever sees the top of this mountain due to the terrible weather in Scotland.  We just happened to be super lucky!

Typically the tour gets to Loch Ness at 1:00, but we got there at 12:00, which the bus driver assured us would "transform" our trip.  Part of the transformation allowed us to stop at John Comyn's castle.  He was killed by Robert the Bruce on Robert's way to the throne in the early 1300's.  Robert the Bruce supported William Wallace's revolt, and continued to fight England for independence.  Comyn's castle was situated on a river.  It was very beautiful and a number of families were picnicing by the water.

Much to our surprise we learned a lot of Harry Potter trivia while were in Scotland.  In addition to Rowling writing in Edinburgh, there were parts of the movie filmed in the Highlands.  This train track behind the castle is for the Jacobite Express, which was filmed on track through the mountains and with some movie magic was transformed into the Hogwarts Express.  We just missed the train itself.

A lot of Prisoner of Azkaban was filmed on this mountain side, and Hagrid's hut was also here.  The driver said it was a good looking village and he wish they hadn't removed it when filming was over.

Glen Coe was the last major destination on the tour.  It was an amazing valley that was very peaceful.  There were a lot of stories that surrounded the area, but the main gist was not to trust Campbells.

There is a lot of ancient volcanic evidence in Scotland, and Glen Coe is no exception.

The last pit stop we took to stretch our legs was to see a Highland Cow, Hamish.  When Chris and I got home we were inspired to watch Braveheart and Rob Roy.  We saw some of this breed of cow in the movies.

This was one of Hamish's kids.

The trip was long and we were on the bus a lot, but we would do it again and again if given the chance.  We had inordinately warm, sunny weather, and the country was truly beautiful.  It was some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen.  It was good to hear the history, and drive by all the battle grounds.  After this day, I truly had a different view on Scots.  As the history goes they fought for freedom for over 500 years and I think that says a lot about a people.  If given the chance to visit the Scottish Highlands, do it!

We had to take a picture of this!