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Thursday, November 3, 2011

On The Road: Oban to Ft. William

Our first day of our Highland adventure took us from Oban to Ft. William.  Not sure how long it would have taken us to drive straight there… we made a full day of it.  There was so much to see!

Our first stop was at Dunstaffnage Castle.  It was built in the 13th century and is one of Scotland’s oldest stone castles.  The Campbell’s have held it all the way since the 15th century!  Isn’t it cool how it’s built on the stone outcropping?  (BTW, that is me under the umbrella.)

See these steps?  Do you think they look charming?  Not one of them is the same height, nor are they level, nor are they the same depth.  And every single castle and fortress in Scotland has these ankle breakers!  UFF-DA!!  ‘Charming’ wears off after the third or fourth set you carefully pick your way up!

Inside the castle walls.  It is being restored by ‘Historic Scotland’, a preservation group.  The grating covers the castle well.

These slit windows were for archers to shoot from.  Easy to get shots off but very hard for those outside to hit the archers.

We went back to Glen Coe (and it was still raining!).  The waterfalls were fantastic!  They flowed from the very tops of the mountains down into the valley.  Sometimes there would be up to 10 falls on each mountain side. 

Don’t you just love the curl in my hair?  LOL  It was raining pretty steadily at that point.  Actually, rainy weather was a ‘hazard’ we acknowledged in booking a trip in the early fall.  And it did rain almost every day.  And it was sunny almost every day.  Scotland has the most changeable weather I have ever seen.  Everyone jokes about their weather “If you don’t like the weather, wait 15 minutes… it will change.”  Well, in Scotland it’s true!!!  

This is the Glenfinnian Monument.  It marks were “Bonnie Prince Charlie” or “The Young Pretender” (depending on which side of the controversy you were) raised his banner and thus started the wheels of the Jacobite Uprising in 1745. 

The figure at the top is NOT “Charlie” but rather is a general “Highlander”.  The monument is to the Highlanders who fought bravely for what they thought was a just cause. 

Before we arrived at our B&B we drove up into Glen Nevis to enjoy the beauty of the burns (streams) coming down the mountain into waiting river.  This is Steall Falls.  What started waaaay up there at the top of Ben Nevis (if it were clear you would see the top of Ben Nevis in that notch)…

… ended just a short bit beyond where I am standing when it met the River Nevis (or at least I think it was). 

After enjoying an impromptu picnic with Dave, we called it a day and headed to our B&B.  Treetops is lovely and I had booked us the “Master Suite”.  It was nice.

We had a large private balcony that looked out towards Ben Nevis and the town of Fort William.  Lovely views.

And the bathroom was big enough to have a dance in it!  

We spent two restful nights here since the next day was a big one for Himself.  

I’ll let him tell you about that!

1 comment:

  1. Teri, that's lovely! I never knew about the slits in the castles being for archers. That's a great tibit!

    ReplyDelete

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