Day 2 - Heading to the Highlands 4/1/2025

 Today is the start of adventures that are planned for me.

Taking a small tour to the Highlands and on to the Isle of Skye.

But first breakfast!

Chose a healthy option - yogurt, granola with bananas and local honey - sooo good.

Then on to meet my tour bus - walking by Adam Smith memorial and this interesting plaque.

And a bit further walked under the west side of Castle Hill - easily defensible.

Met up with my tour group - nice guide and small group.  Guide is a wealth of information on just about everything - will try to distill 9 hours of it!

Did you know Scotland has 3 official languages?

English (most widely spoken), Gaelic (pronounced Gallic), and Scots.  Gaelic is spoken in the west and the highlands, while Scots is spoken in the northeast.

Scotland also has 2 official flags - look for a post on flags coming soon.

Our first stop was to admire these bridges over the Firth of Forth. The red one on the right is very interesting from engineering point of view. This article will explain better than I can.

Next stop was at a loch (lake) - note the pair of ducks in the foreground. 

The water is stunningly clear - and cold as melted snow.

Passed by field after field of peat bogs - a nickname for Edinburgh was Auld Reekie, from when they used to burn peat for fuel and heat.

Next up - the Three Sisters hills - I could only get 2 of them in photo. 

This is very close to the site of the infamous Glencoe Massacre.  The Highlands have a long history of hospitality - and briefly, the Clan Campbell took advantage of the MacDonald hospitality, then murdered men, women and children as they slept. To this day, there are signs saying “Campbells Not Welcome”

Here is a path where the MacDonalds tried to escape, though many more perished in the bitter winter weather.

So much history - impossible to do it justice.

This is a reconstructed croft.

Due to the rough weather, and the non-permanent materials, there aren’t any originals left. 

We heard lots of information about the Jacobites and the Hanoverians - Bonnie Prince Charlie and the 1745 uprising.  

I knew much of it from reading over the years, but our guide was passionate and not pro-English! 

A monument to the first Commandos, another Scottish “invention”.

And here’s me in front of Ben Nevis, highest point in the British Isles, at 4,413 ft.

An absolutely gorgeous view - besides the fact that I took it on my phone, it could have been 300 years ago. 

Then on to another ancient house, original this time, not reconstructed.  A broch - though not Lallybroch 😎

Note the double walls on the exterior - the broch is believed to be about 2,000 years old. Entirely laid stone, no adhesives of any kind.

And a definite tour highlight - we crossed from the mainland onto the Isle of Skye on the last operational manually operated turntable ferry.  It’s less than a minute to watch but quite impressive.

Finally to Portree, for 2 nights.

Quick bowl of soup at Dulse & Brose.

And the best butter I’ve ever tasted - from the Orkney Islands 

And so to bed.