The Scottish highlands seem a brooding place of mist covered hills, standing stone circles and gray stone buildings. We flew from Paris to Manchester then took a 3 hour train ride to Glasgow. The countryside was pretty there but it just got better and better the farther north we went. We drove from Glasgow to Lennoxtown where we spent the first night in a snug, a small private room within a public or private house, once common in pubs across Great Britain.  We noticed barricades all along the main road in Lennoxtown. We were told that the next day all roads in and out of town were going to be closed for the timed trials of the European Championships being hosted by Glasgow. We were glad to get out before the race started!

Glasgow is in the lowlands but as we started our loop tour by driving up the coast of Loch Lomond to Glen Coe, we entered the highlands. I had the “Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” stuck in my head for days! Glen Coe is close to Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK and the center of mountaineering in the country. It is so scenic a number of movies have been filmed there including Harry Potter and Outlander.

Scotland has some intriguing  names for its towns. We saw signs for Haigh of Glass, Spittal of Glenmuick and Spittal of Glenshee!

We spent a few nights in the little town of Newtonmore near Cairngorm National Park and not far from Inverness. This was a good base to do exploratory day trips. One day we took a funicular, the UK’s highest funicular railway to  the top of a mountain in Cairngorm where they claim panoramic views from over 3,500 ft. All we could see was fog. The views were great once we came down though, the hillsides were pink with heather!

Next we visited the Highland Folk Museum. This living history museum had a recreation of a 17th century Scottish village among other things. The 80 acre site was a very pleasant place to walk around and enjoy the scenery and cool air.

The last place on our agenda for the day was the Dalwhinnie Distillery. Roy will be covering our distillery adventures in a separate blog. One thing I  want to mention is that the distilleries all seem to have “take away sample packs for the drivers” which I thought was very civilized.

Before leaving the area we took a drive down the north shore of Loch Ness which was refreshingly absent of any commercialization.  Another point of interest near Inverness is the Culloden Battlefield where they have a well done presentation of both sides of the conflict. It is a historically important site as it was the location of the last pitched battle on UK soil where 1,600 men were slain in less than an hour, most of them Scots.

After leaving the battlefield we drove to Cairnbulg for our house sitting job. Roy will be writing about our time there in another blog post.