Fort William and Ibhin Nis

I'm not sure what mountain this is, but it's some more of the beautiful scenery you can see all over Scotland!

On Friday, my family and I journeyed North to visit Fort William, Glenfinnan, and Inverness (also known by its Gaelic name, Ibhin Nis). It was a long drive to get to Fort William. They city is on the waterfront of Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe. Rising behind the city is the mountain Ben Nevis, which is considered a Munro. (A Munro is a mountain that has an elevation higher than 3,500 feet). We wandered down the main street in Fort William. Fort William is quite a small town, serving mainly as a point for hikers to start out on a hike up Ben Nevis, or out into some of the surrounding scenery. We wandered down the main road, looking in some of the shops. Alyssa got some souvenirs, both for herself and her friends. And my mom got herself a wool sweater, made with authentic wool straight from Scottish sheep.

The Glenfinnan Viaduct, of Harry Potter fame! :D

After about an hour in Fort William, we headed out to Glenfinnan to see the Glenfinnan monument. We pulled up in the parking lot across the street from the monument. I got out of the car, looking at the scenery behind the monument. Then Mom told me to look to my left. There, sprawled against the Scottish scenery, was the Glenfinnan Viaduct. I of course, recognized it from the scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Ron and Harry were driving the flying Ford Anglia and Harry ended up dangling out of the car, high above the Hogwarts Express. That whole scene took place above the Glenfinnan Viaduct. After two months in Scotland, I finally got to see my first authentic Harry Potter location! I was really, really excited about it. We snapped a bunch of pictures, climbed up a nearby hill for an even better view, took some more pictures, and then headed back to the car to drive up to Loch Ness.

The view opposite the Glenfinnan Viaduct.
The Glenfinnan Monument is visible
between the trees in the bottom right corner.

We didn't have much time at Loch Ness, because we were meeting Mom's friend in Inverness for dinner. We drove around the loch (which is Gaelic for lake), stopping to see Foyer Falls, which are waterfalls in the woods surrounding Loch Ness. The water has a yellow/brown color to it that makes it look like the waterfall isn't water at all, but is actually root beer. It's a pretty cool sight. The walk down to the viewing point wasn't far, but the walk back up to the road was a bit of a hike. We continued on around Loch Ness, stopping at one point to get pictures of the loch and the Urquhart Castle that was across the loch from us. There was a little path that went down to the beach, so we headed out there to get our pictures. Once we had all gotten several pictures, we got back in the car and continued around the loch to get to Urquhart Castle. Dad got some more close-up pictures of the Castle, but we decided not to go tour these ruins. During our whole visit to Loch Ness, we didn't catch a sight of the infamous Loch Ness monster, known as 'Nessie' through most of Scotland. I personally don't think that Nessie exists, but that could just be the skeptic in me! I'm sure Loch Ness will continue to attract a lot of tourists, many of whom will surely be believers.

Loch Ness, the edge of the beach we were at, and some of the surrounding mountains. And this view, with the low hanging clouds, is very, very typical of Scottish weather. But it wasn't raining, so I was very happy about that!

The Foyer Falls. It's hard to see the strange
color, but you can almost see it at the top.

Finally, we headed to our last stop, Inverness. I believe it's a fairly large city, but we just got to town, found a place to park, and headed to a local bar and restaurant to meet Mom's friend Ross for dinner. We met him at the restaurant, and then waited hungrily for about half an hour before the restaurant started serving food. After what felt like forever, a waitress came and asked what we wanted to eat. This time, I got lasagna. I know, not the most Scottish of meals! But it was delicious, and it certainly appeased my hunger. On the way back to the car, we even got to see some cool graffiti. Spray-painted high up on a wall was the phrase 'Keep Moving,' but it was written so the letters were all backwards. It made me wonder if the graffiti artist's message was actually 'Keep Moving Backwards.' After our longest (both in time and miles) trip through Scotland--it took three hours to get to Fort William, another few to Loch Ness, and then another three-four hour drive back to Stirling--we were all feeling pretty beat. All of us were very happy to be headed back to Stirling for a good, long night's sleep.

A tout a l'heure!