Highlights of the Scottish Highlands

On the Wednesday of my trip to Scotland, Lyla and I piled into a little van full of other tourists and headed out on a highlands tour.  We took the "Oban, West Highland Lochs, and Castles" tour offered by Timberbush.  (Seriously, click on that link, because I saw that and their camera is so much better than mine, but I saw that!)  Our guide was an extremely talkative lady who regaled us with stories about the sights we passed, Scottish history, and nothing as we drove along, through the highlands and out to the western coast.  This is the field where William Wallace won his first battle against the English, and that little tower on the smaller (left) hill is the national monument to him.

We stopped to admire the rolling fields and this statue, to the founder of something to do with the RAF.

This is Doune Castle, where all the castle scenes in Monty Python's The Quest for the Holy Grail were filmed.

This is me, galloping in front of the same castle, making clopping sounds with imaginary coconuts.  I think this picture sums up how excited I was to just stumble upon this place.

pretty fall colors

meat pies

We stopped in the little town of Kilmahog for pies and a break.  The river was flooding and the ducks kept zooming by, looking mildly alarmed by their own speed.  As soon as we sat down, though, the ducks all swarmed us and looked pathetic until they got some pie crust, while Lyla freaked out about her distaste for water fowl.

We continued through the highlands, learning about various clans and battles, until we reached Oban on the coast.  I heard people speaking Gaelic!  And I thought Hungarian was weird...

This is McCaig's Folly, which was intended to be a museum but wound up being an unfinished monument some rich businessman built for himself.

More of pretty little Oban and its bay.  I also ate a pound of mussels here.  Nam.

Also, there were lochs.

Then we traveled to Dunstaffnage Castle, this one built on top of an enormous f-off rock.  I guess when nature's given you an enormous rock in the middle of a field next to a loch, you build a castle on it.

loch self-portrait

We backtracked a bit and got to see some magnificent sky.

loch + castle + mountain + fog = Scotland

I think we're just a little bit too excited about the whole thing!  Seriously, it was a great day.   It's not a coincidence that this particular place is called Loch Awe.  The castle is Kilchurn.  Not pictured because I couldn't get a decent picture from the van, we also saw elk, deer, enormous black cows, hairy highland cows, waterfalls, and even more gorgeous mountains, castles, ruins, and sky-scapes.

Our final stop was the Inveraray Castle, which was closed for the winter.  Luckily, our guide was a crazy person and essentially broke us onto the grounds by driving us over ditches and up sidewalks through the back.  It was awesome, because while the other castles we saw were tough and Scottish-looking, this one looks like something out of a Disney movie.  Even cooler was that we got caught sneaking in!  We got to jump out and take pictures until security came and chased us back to the van, whooping and laughing.  By then it was dark, so we didn't get to see much of bonny Loch Lomond, so I just listened to our guide's stories for the rest of the way home.  It was a fantastic day for sure and I'm so glad I managed to get out Edinburgh and see a bit of the rest of Scotland!  It was so, so beautiful, and it was also great fun to learn about all the crazy things these different clans have done and had done to them.