Urquhart Castle

The hill behind our room at Clunebeg had a herd of Highland Cattle.  Those are not very common, so it was awesome to get to see them!

We woke bright and early, and drove back through Inverness so we could do a quick tour of Culloden Battlefield.  We were really interested in seeing what it was all about but when we showed up, and went through the visitors center, we found out to even go see the  balltefield would cost a mini fortune, so we finished at the visitors center, grabbed a quick picture on the drive out, and went back toward Drumnadrochit... because the Loch awaits!

Some pictures of some pretty sights in Inverness.

We've made it to Urquhart Castle!  (Ur-kart).  There is a lot of history to this castle, starting from the first documented mention of it in 1296.  There were lots of battles, it changed hands many times, and was eventually blown up by it's owners to keep it from the hands of their enemies.  During this time it grew and grew and grew leaving the ruins that are there today.  And now, an overload of pictures, because we took so many, and they were all so good.  I whittled them down the best I could!

Searching for Nessie

We spent a couple hours just wandering the castle grounds.  It was beautiful, and we wanted to stay longer.  They had a fun scavenger hunt for kids that Rylissa went nuts over.  She was upset that we couldn't stay long enough for her to finish the entire thing, though she did her very best. We were of course rather disappointed that Nessie didn't show up while we were there, but maybe, just maybe some day we'll be back, and get to look for her again. We had a long drive back to Edinburgh, and we were meeting up with the owner of the apartment we were renting for the next two nights so we had to get ready to go.  We took a minute in the gift shop, and the boys found themselves some wooden swords (seriously, why do I do this to myself?) that we ended up getting for them.  Then it was back to the car to start the drive home.  

We opted to take a different route home.  Our cab driver the other morning told us that drive home this way because it is much more beautiful.  It also passes through the area where the movie Skyfall was filmed, so we decided to give it a go.  He wasn't wrong.  It was gorgeous.  It was also raining pretty hard, and there were moments where it was rather scary as we were driving.  The roads were very narrow, and slick, but I'm glad we did it!

More Highland Cattle!!!

More fun road signs.  There's nothing wrong with them, they are just different, and that makes them fun.

These are called the Kelpies.  They were built in 2013, and they're pretty awesome!  Wish we could have stopped to enjoy, but time was -a- ticking!

We made it to the apartment about an hour later than we'd hoped to be there. After some wait time, and a generous taxi driver that used his phone to call the apartment owner, he eventually came down and let us in to the apartment we were staying in for two nights.  It was beautiful, and two floors! There was a full kitchen, living room, laundry, a couple bathrooms, and 3 bedrooms.  There was working Internet (you wouldn't believe how hard it's been to get working Internet in the places we've stayed) and cable, and so the kids vegged out while we settled in for the night.  When we got hungry, we walked around the town until we found the Omni Center, and went into a restaurant called Frankie and Benny's.  Really good food!  Then it was back to our apartment and to bed.