Day 2 Inverness. August 24th

Great B and B. Slept well. Almost slept through our pre-ordered breakfast! Our tour began and we were off to Lochness. At the embarkment location there were a few of the hairy red cows. (The local ones are actually black)

We are approaching the Urquhart castle. It would have been a very impressive fortification in its time.

A large trebuchet on the grounds

Drove along the west side Lochness, stopping at the war memorial which was located where they trained for the British commandos in WW2. We continued until the community of Fort William where we had lunch. There is only a remnant of the old fort at the water's edge. Not much to see.

By now it's windy and rainy. Our first real rain. We dried off on the bus and continued our drive. We stopped at various pullouts to see some views. Only the brave got out of the minivan to take a photo. We stopped to see the 3 sisters, Ben( meaning mountain) Nevis which is the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom (4413 ft) and Glencoe. A Glen is a u-shaped valley. Coe the river at the bottom. We even stopped at the road to "Skyfall" for you James Bond lovers.

Two of the 3 sisters ( named faith, hope and love)

Our last stop was at castle Doune, for those who know Monty Python. We also crossed the river Teith, pronounced teeth. At one point in history no one north of this spot (who was traveling to the highlands) could have a weapon. If you were found with a weapon, you would be executed. ( you also couldn't wear a kilt, or play bagpipes, or speak gaelic). Made it back to Edinburgh by 7:30. A quick late dinner and back to our hotel we had just left 2 days ago.

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Pretrip practice

Hello my friends and family. This is just a practice "run" of posting on our Britain blog. I always have to relearn the steps. So.... we leave on Monday Aug 19th mid morning flying thru Seattle and then straight to London. We arrive Tues morning around 9:50 am London time (which is 8 hrs ahead -or about 1AM our time) A rough itinerary London Edinburgh Inverness Edinburgh York Keswick ( Lake district of England) Shrewsbury Swansea ( Wales) and on to Cardiff Bath Wareham ("Jurassic Coast - south west coast) Oxford Cotswold Oxford London If you only see this page, there should be links somewhere on the page to get you to the other postings

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