Glenfinnan

When I last left off, we were driving through the Highlands towards Fort William along the Road to the Isles. One of the better-known villages along this route is the picturesque Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. The town is particularly known for the Glenfinnan Viaduct and the Glenfinnan Monument, as well as its natural setting in the gorgeousness that is the Highlands. I feel like I've spent half of my blog gushing about how much I love and adore the Highlands...

Have I mentioned I love the Highlands? 

Anyway... Glenfinnan! 

Here we have the Glenfinnan Viaduct. Assuming you don't live under a rock, you are probably already familiar with it. How you ask? Have you seen Harry Potter (the movies, not the books)? If your answer was yes, you have seen the Glenfinnan Viaduct 3 times in Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Goblet of Fire. The Hogwarts Express is showing travelling over the Viaduct. There are plenty of really nice pictures of the Viaduct out there, so I was looking forward to a prime photo op, but alas, they fence it off and you can't get anywhere _near_ the viaduct from the tourist carpark. I don't know why I expected anything else; the UK has a particular knack for putting hedges or trees or fences between you and what you want to see. But I digress.

If you can recall several posts back when I gave you a longer lecture than usual on the Battle of Culloden, you can find another piece of Jacobite history here in Glenfinnan. Above is the Glenfinnan Monument, built in 1815 to commemorate those who died in the Jacobite rebellion and to mark the spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie first raised his standard in 1745, plunging Scotland into war, ending eight months later at Culloden. So that's Charlie up on top of the tower. 

The area is definitely pretty and a nice spot for a pit stop and a snack bar/concessions area to grab something to eat. The tourist centre carpark is conveniently located next to the Viaduct and the Monument (which, btw, you can pay a pretty penny to go into if you are so inclined). The town proper is a bit further up the road if you want to take a walk. We found this little church to poke around in and then from there walked down to the Loch.

So go forth! See Scotland! Up next, Unplanned Detour #2 to find out just what the heck "Neptune's Staircase" is.

Road to the Isles

The problem with writing up posts almost a year after the events they describe is that you forget where exactly all of your photos were taken. Whoops. But better late than never~!

For this post, I'm going to focus on scenes from the Road to the Isles, an absolute must-see part of Scotland. The Road itself refers to the A830, which connects Mallaig, where the ferry docked and deposited us back on the mainland (can I say that since Britain itself is an island?) and a major port town for continuing on to the Hebrides, to Fort William, a large-ish Highland town. More on Fort William later.

The reason you should really travel this route is because of this:



and also this:



maybe this?



You may not believe me, but I am being really selective with my pictures here. It's just so pretty there and we had such a nice day to drive it. See?



I know, if none of those swayed you, this ought to:



That's our little blue Ford for the trip. It was a good little car. Anyway, as you may have surmised from the open car door, we took the opportunity to get out and hike around a bit, mostly to go check out a baby waterfall we saw about halfway up the hillside. The whole Highlands area is big with hikers for hopefully obvious reasons. I would love to get back and actually do some thorough exploring.

Along the route are several little villages that can be fun to poke around in. Perhaps the best known is Glenfinnan, and that shall take centre stage in the next post, which hopefully will not take six months to write!