The cab arrived right at 9 am and took us to Arnold Clark, a popular car rental company here in the UK. Our cabbie was an interesting fellow. He is a falconer and is responsible for keeping the runways at Edinburgh airport free of birds. He has 5 birds (4 falcons, 1 eagle) and he takes them to the airport to hunt down and kill sea gulls, geese, ducks and other birds that could get sucked into the engines on take-off or landing. Good news for travelers!
We rented a nice little Renault, an upgrade from the Kia we paid for. Yes, I’m driving on the wrong side of the road a 5 speed car. They don’t have many automatics over here. When you rent a car, they assume a 5 speed. In fact, they’ll look at you funny if you ask for car with an automatic transmission. I had a hard time getting out of the parking lot of the car rental place because it was uphill and I had it in 3rd gear. It kept dying on me. Go figure! I found 1st gear after a few tries and we were off, through roundabouts, strange traffic lights and signs hard for us to read.
But once we left Edinburgh, the trip became a lot more fun. We traveled almost straight north from Edinburgh, by Perth and ultimately arrived in Inverness about 4 hours later. Inverness is about 180 miles north of Edinburgh. It is at the north-eastern end of Loch Ness. Here are a few of the pictures of the view on the way up. The Highlands consists of mountains that seem to pop-up from nowhere. They are high enough and we are far enough north that the tops of the mountain don’t have any trees on them, they have scrubby bushes called broom, and small plants called heather. Yes, heather! The broom blooms in June and July. They have folk songs here about falling in love when the yellow is on the broom. Heather is blooming now, though it is at the end of the bloom. It blooms pink or purple. Here is Cathy with some heather!
About halfway during our trip today up north we saw hundreds of thousands of acres of 40-60 foot perfectly formed Christmas-looking trees. Conifers, Spruces, Pines. They were amazing. Made us think of Christmas and having the perfect tree. It was like a huge Christmas tree farm. We’ll try to get some pictures of those on the way back to Edinburgh.
We had a late lunch at a place called The Filling Station. We both had a traditional fish & chips, which were good. But even better was the garlic cheese bread they brought out as an appetizer. It looked like a small pizza, but was amazingly delicious.
We’re staying at an old hotel called The Royal Highland Hotel. It has a great shower. Our flat in Edinburgh has a weanie shower. Half the time there is no hot water and at times the pressure is so low it just dribbles out. But here we have a hot shower, a warm room and a comfortable bed.
Well almost comfortable. We miss our tempra-pedic mattress!Here is our room with a view.
There is a modern looking castle by the river. I don’t think it is old but what is a city without a castle? Later we found that it was built in the 1800's and remodled more recently.
We’ve taken pictures of some of the building and the shoppes here in Inverness. We’re far north here, on the same latitude as Moscow.
From time to time you’ll see familiar stores. We went into a McDonald’s today but didn’t see anything familiar on the menu. No Big-Macs. No double-cheeseburgers. Still it had the McDonald look and smell.
Apparently the MacDonald Clan was a ruthless bunch of mauraders here in the Highlands so Ronald McDonald must be from a different branch! Tomorrow we are going to explore the lochs and the Highland Mountains. Till then.
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