Scotland = Done.

Diana and I spent the start of the week touring around the Highlands and Isle of Skye with Haggis Tours. It was an awesome time (details of what we did are below). I should have pics up in the next few days. We have spent the afternoon packing up my room and tonight we are going to dinner with my flatmates before catching the night bus to London. It leaves at 10:30pm and arrives in London at 7:30am - it's going to be a long night. We plan on spending about a week at Tyler's place while we tour the city, before heading to Oslo.

Lots of pictures to come and hopefully some decent stories along the way as well.

Highlands and Isle of Skye Tour

Day One

Edinburgh to Loch Ness

* Leave Edinburgh towards Stirling passing by Linlithgow Palace- birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots
* Stirling battlefields- where Wallace and Bruce bravely fought for Scotland’s freedom!
* Through the Trossachs- Rob Roy MacGregor country
* Rannoch Moor- the largest expanse of uninhabited wilderness in Europe!
* Glencoe- site of the infamous bloody massacre in the winter of 1692
* Great Glen- Lochs Linnhe, Lochy, Oich, and.. Ness!
* Fort William and Ben Nevis- the highest mountain in the UK
* Fort Augustus & Morag’s (Nessie’s sister’s) Lodge

Day Two

Skye day-tour

* Loch Garry- affectionately known as “Scotland’s Loch”, and on to ‘The Road To The Isles’
* Glen Shiel & the Five Sisters of Kintail- they weren’t always there you know!
* Eilean Donan Castle- used in the film ‘Highlander’
* Over the sea to Skye!
* Broadford and ‘Beinn na Caillich’- Hill of the Old Woman, grave of Saucy Mary
* Sligachan Glen and a Highland faerie story, and views of Glamaig - hill race run each year
* Portree and magnificent Trotternish- ‘nish’ being the Norse word for peninsula.
* Back over the Skye Bridge to Fort Augustus

Day Three

Return to Edinburgh

* Drive the full length of mysterious Loch Ness, past ruined Urquhart Castle
* Inverness- meaning ‘At the mouth of the River Ness’
* Culloden Moor- where Bonnie Prince Charlie led the Highlanders in the doomed final Jacobite uprising, and changed Scotland forever
* Clava Cairns - prehistoric burial chambers
* Through the Cairngorms National Park to Kingussie for lunch
* Drumochter Pass- the highest road in Britain
* Dunkeld- shimmering River Tay and the ruined Cathedral. Back to the Lowlands!
* Past Perth- an ancient capital of our nation
* Forth Road / Rail Bridges