Scotland Tour: Fort William

Last weekend we took a short break to Scotland.  Our first stop was Fort William, which was about 7 hours north of us.  Some of the draw to this area is the scenic West Coast Railway, made famous in the 2nd Harry Potter Movie.  We also wanted to see the beautiful scenery that Scotland has to offer. 

So on our first full day in Scotland we did some more driving to see a few sites.  Our first castle was the Eilean Donan Castle, which may seem familiar because it has been in lots of movies since the mid 1900s, most recently "Made of Honor" in 2008.  The castle was very picturesque, out on it's own peninsula, with a bagpiper playing out front. 

This castle has its origin in the 13th century, but was destroyed in the early 1700s and wasn't rebuilt until the early 1900s.  It is a relatively small, romantic castle, and the first one that I've been in that feels like a real home.  We explored the castle and then enjoyed the scenery outside.

On our way to see Loch Ness, we stopped on the side of the road to see a local war monument and spotted some Highland cows.

For those of you who don't know, "Loch" means lake, so there are many Lochs in Scotland.  I found that this area of Scotland reminded me a lot of the Adirondack lakes surrounded by mountains.  It didn't take long for us to get to Loch Ness, a very large and deep lake.  We pulled over and went to the Loch Ness Centre, which does a nice job of sharing all the monster stories, the hoaxes, and all the investigations that have been done to explain the sitings.  It's pretty amazing the amount of science that has been done in the loch to understand what lives there and what doesn't.  Unfortunately, we had no sitings of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster while we were there.