Scotland August 3, 2022: Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Highlands
Before we came to Scotland this year we’d decided to go on day trips using trains and/or buses to cut down on the driving (remember – “because this is Scotland, the car was a 5-speed manual transmission – and you drive on the left side. The roundabouts go around to the left.”)
Last night I’d looked online to see what was available and came up with today’s 12-hour tour from Rabbie’s (which my spellcheck always tries to make as rabies):
You leave the cobbled streets of Edinburgh and travel past Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle.
This region is soaked in history, so sit back and relax as your driver-guide entertains you with the tales of Mary Queen of Scots, William Wallace, and Scottish folklore.
If you keep a look out, you can catch a glimpse of the Kelpies. These 30-metre tall horse head sculptures need to be seen to be believed.
Your first stop is in the town of Callander on the edge of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. You can grab coffee here and peruse the yummy local delicacies on offer.
After this stop, it’s time to get your camera ready. Because as you travel north into the Highlands, the landscapes suddenly become more provocative.
Shimmering lochs, rugged mountains, forest filled glens: it’s all so beautiful that it’s easy to forget these were once battlegrounds for fiercely territorial Highland clans.
You stop in Glencoe, one of the most famous natural landmarks in all of Scotland. This beautiful area boasts steep slopes and photogenic peaks. Your driver-guide may reveal to you the tragic tale that’s haunted this valley for over 300 years.
You then enter the glacial valley known as the Great Glen and pass under the shadow of Ben Nevis, Britain’s tallest mountain.
After this visual feast of mighty inclines, you arrive in Fort Augustus on the banks of Loch Ness. At 23 miles long and over 700ft deep, Loch Ness is the largest loch by volume in Scotland.
You have around one hour and a half here. You can search for the infamous monster on a relaxing boat cruise, wander around the shores of the loch at your own pace, and grab a bite to eat.
Your journey south is packed full of classic Highland scenery. You travel through the curvy Cairngorms National Park, along Loch Laggan, and past Blair Castle.
Amongst the tall trees of Perthshire, you have a final refreshment break before journeying alongside the UNESCO Forth Rail Bridge and back into Edinburgh.
I’d checked maps, an app I have called ETA and determined the amount of time it would take to get to the meeting point. We went to the lobby of the hotel where we knew there was a dedicated phone to call a cab. The cab turned out to be a “pre-hire” sort of Uber. We got to Rabbie’s cafe just the smallest tad late so we couldn’t sit together in the 16-person van. Tom got to ride shotgun and I was behind him. Amazingly, someone was even later than we were and they had to go to the back and sit in the bench seat with a couple other people. Throughout the trip we were careful to be on time – who wants to find a cab from a remote glen? – but this other person was consistently late.
I had planned to get coffee and pastries at Rabbie’s Cafe before we left so that didn’t happen. We went the opposite way of this map so our first stop was Pitlochry (no pun intended) hidden on the map just south of Blair Atholl.
According to Desmond, our driver for the day, Pitlochry is mostly a tourist town and today, WE were the tourists. We stopped off the main drag in a hugeish parking lot, climbed a small (for Scotland) hill and found a small cafe with about 4 tables.
Tom and I got sandwiches and coffee to take away and eat on the bus.
6. Highland Perthshire – Travel through pine-clad slopes and take in views of fast-flowing rivers – and stop at the coffee shop in Pitlochry, mentioned above.
5. Grampian Mountains and Cairngorms – Enjoy classic views of one of Scotland’s most mesmerising mountain ranges. When we stayed in Aviemore, we visited the Cairngorms several times. On this trip, we just drove through. (this trip’s photos in the gallery, below)
4 Fort Augustus – This wee town of 650 inhabitants is a great spot to watch boats traversing the Caledonian Canal. The canal was so cool – they opened the locks for about 6 boats while we were there.
Loch Ness – Take a chance to go on an optional boat cruise or wander around this alluring and eerie loch. We had been to a different part of Loch Ness when we went to Urquhart Castle in 2015.
3 Great Glen – A humongous fault line through the Scottish Highlands; it’s a location that’s as historically important as it is beautiful. I’m not sure why we didn’t stop to see the fault line but Desmond said it was there so it must have been.
2 Glencoe – Be moved by the sheer beauty and tragic tales of one of Scotland’s most famous landscapes.
Desmond played the music to Skyfall while driving through Glencoe.
And the worst part of the beautiful place.
Short version:
Long version:
1 Rannoch Moor – Admire unforgettable views at this epic expanse of untouched wilderness.
All our photos from this day trip – trying out a gallery for the first time.
Tom took a bunch of short videos with Desmond’s narrations but I haven’t figured out how to embed them all here and it’s slow going to upload them individually. See those videos here.
As promised, we got back about 8, found a cab and had dinner (burger/fries and Commonwealth Games) and bedtime to get ready for another adventure.
Scotland Notes
Beinn: is the most common Gaelic word for “mountain”
Coffee americano: (black coffee with 2 shots of espresso)
Chips: French Fries
Dinnae: Don’t. My grandmother and people in the church where I grew up said this all the time. “A dinnae ken” which means “I don’t know”.
Haggis: Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach though now often in an artificial casing instead. According to the 2001 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique: “Although its description is not immediately appealing, haggis has an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour”.
We have my grandmother’s old cookbook with recipes for haggis, lights, sweetbreads (don’t ask), blood pudding… I never could have made it in the olden days!
We also saw haggis pizza, haggis flavored chips, frozen haggis… We tried none of that.
I was going to put a picture but I couldn’t stomach it (NO pun intended!)
Loch en Eilein: Simply – loch means lake. Eilein means island. So, there’s an island in the lake 🙂
Place suffixes:
-more:
-ness: a promontory or headland. Loch Ness is a lake with a promontory
-shire: Roughly “county of” Inverness-shire; Perthshire
-strath: a wide river valley, a stretch of relatively flat, fertile land bounded by hills. Strathspey is the River Spey and the valley around it.
Interesting place names:
- Crook of Devon: The name derives from the sudden angle (crook) which the River Devon makes near the village. A village within the parish of Fossoway in Perthshire. It is located about 6 miles southwest of Kinross on the A977 road. Until relatively recently the official name of the village was Fossoway (as evidenced on the war memorial etc.) but this has been usurped by the widely used nickname “crook of devon”.
- Drumnadrochit: It derives from the Scottish Gaelic ‘druim na drochaid’ meaning the ‘Ridge of the Bridge’.
- Firth of Forth: (Scottish Gaelic: Linne Foirthe) is the estuary or firth of Scotland’s River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea, between Fife to the north and Lothian to the south. It was known as Bodotria in Roman times.
- Inverfarigaig: (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Farragaig) is a hamlet at the mouth of the River Farigaig, on the south-east shore of Loch Ness in Inverness-shire, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland.
- Kingdom of Fife: (Scottish Gaelic: Fìobha) is a council area and historic county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland.
- Killiecrankie. I have no idea how it got this name. It sounds sort of like you want to kill the crank but that can’t be right.
Killiecrankie (Gaelic: Coille Chreithnich) is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland on the River Garry. - Loch Faskally: (Scottish Gaelic: Loch Faschoille is a man-made reservoir in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) northwest of Pitlochry.
Playlist of all my Scotland videos plus others of interest: