My traveling companions and I arrived at our hostel on Saturday night after a long train ride from London. We went out for drinks and some traditional Scottish food at a nearby pub - I got smoked haddock, and one of my friends was brave enough to try haggis - and we were pleasantly surprised when, shortly after we'd arrived, a band started playing American blues tunes (Eric Clapton and the like)! We stuck around a while, and soon we started talking to the two middle-aged couples sitting next to us; only two of them were natives to Inverness, but all of them were Scottish. They were really kind, and in addition to giving us lots of tips about what there was to see in the area and how to order/properly drink scotch, they also bought us multiple rounds of beer (or, if you're me and don't like beer, cider)! A few dances and lots of laughs later, we stumbled back to the hostel and went to bed.
Sunday we were a little groggy, so we got off to a bit of a slow start, but eventually we went outside to explore the town. It's rather small and blessedly walkable, with a river (the River Ness) running through it, several lovely churches, and lots of pubs; it's also within easy bussing distance of many of the highlands' notable landmarks. It's a really wonderful place, I'd recommend it to anyone! Anyway, our first stop was Inverness Castle - which is not an ancient castle, it only dates from 1836 and it's used today as the town courthouse... but it was still very lovely, and it's up on a hill which provides a fantastic view of the town.
I didn't take this picture, it's from wikipedia, but the only shot I got of the whole castle was really blurry and awful; I thought this represented it better...
I did take this one, though, as well as the rest of the photos you see here :)
The islands from the bank
The three guys I was traveling with; they were a lot of fun :)
We noticed there were Christmas lights strung above the paths, and so made it a goal to return at night in the hopes they'd be lit up. (Oho, but were they?! Stay tuned for the answer!) We went out again that night with some cool Canadian folks we'd met at the hostel, saw some more music, and tossed back more than a few drinks...
... Resulting in another late start on Monday. :P Oh well; we were just trying to honor the Scottish drinking tradition! That afternoon we walked through the town graveyard, in which stood another tall hill. We climbed it, and found several rows of very old graves on the top (the earliest I saw was from around 1810). With big, dramatic clouds rolling by overhead and more striking views of the city, there was quite a gravity to the scene, and I stayed for an hour or so, feeling very serene. I didn't take any pictures; it just wouldn't have felt right.
On Tuesday morning (hangover-free) we decided to go to the Black Isle, a peninsula very close to Inverness where, the people at the hostel had told us, there were hiking opportunities just about everywhere you looked. Sadly, there turned out to be a bit a discrepancy between the kind of hiking we had in mind and the kind of hiking the people who'd given us our information had in mind... we got off the bus expecting to see a trailhead of some kind, but all we saw were a few houses, fields and trees to the right, and the beach to the left. So we followed the beach for some time, then moved to the road which ran alongside it, all the while looking for trails, to no avail (plus we got derailed by a snail; the whole thing was quite a fail... I could keep going, but I won't). After walking aimlessly for at least a couple of miles, we began to feel lost, so I asked a random driver for help locating a bus stop, and he told us to keep going up the road till we reached Cromarty. Two more miles found us within sight of Cromarty, and we stopped to chat with a man walking his dog along the beach, only to find that he was the curator of the town museum; he told us a bit about it, including that it was a Georgian town (meaning it dates from the Georgian era), all the buildings were painted white, and that we could indeed catch a bus back to town from there. He also told us that the fields and woodlands we'd seen as we were walking, though they were privately owned, were open to the public, so they would've been fair game for hiking; we figured this is what the people we'd spoken to at the hostel had meant by "hiking opportunities." Slightly annoyed by the realization that we could've been hiking the whole time we'd been trudging along the road, we finally arrived at Cromarty, where we hung around another cemetery while waiting for the bus. There was, however, a cool, decrepit church there, built in 1783; the roof had caved in, and the inner courtyard was full of trees and vines and fallen bricks. It had a kind of beauty to it, and it almost made the whole ordeal worth while.
In wake of the slight letdown brought by Tuesday, Wednesday was SPECTACULAR! We bussed it to Loch Ness, where we did some actual hiking, starting with an old logger's trail that led into the surrounding hillside.
Got some terrific views
♪ Into the wooooods! ♪
The beautiful countryside from the top of a viewpoint
We also visited Urquhart Castle, a 13th-century fortress on the shores of Loch Ness.
From above the castle...
... and from atop one of its battlements! It's a bit ruinous now, as you can see, but imposing nonetheless
Me, obscuring a really spectacular view of the loch :P
After that, we hopped on a bus back home, but as we were passing the loch, I spied something outside my window...
Could it be?... Nawww...
We stayed close to Inverness again on Thursday, strolling around a local nature reserve (and walking through the projects to get to it!) and then later having a few drinks to celebrate our last night in town. That night, we returned to the islands on the River Ness to see how they looked with all the Christmas lights turned on... maybe it was partially due to the alcohol, but the effect was beyond magical. It was like a little multicolored fairyland. I only wish my camera could've done it any semblance of justice, but here's just one picture:
The blur is definitely not some intentional artistic choice; it just looked awful with the flash on...
It was a wonderful way to end our visit. :) Then, after a rather long train journey on Friday, I went by myself to Aberystwyth, Wales, where a high school buddy of mine is studying abroad this semester! It's another very small town, right on the coast, and it had a whole lot of charm.
It was really neat to get so close to the Atlantic Ocean, having only ever seen the Pacific!
Aberystwyth had a 13th-century castle of its own; that's behind me, on the far left is the Old College, and between them is the local church my friend attends
I'm back in London now, attending classes again (reluctantly), but as I mentioned, Abby's spring break begins next week, and then the weekend after that, the two of us are headed to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day! We're BEYOND excited; it promises to be a blast. So check in soon, folks! Lots of love to all of you!
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