After we returned to Glasgow from Yorkshire, we took a one day bus tour to the Highlands out of Glasgow!
Our trip had several stops to get off and look at the views. This guy was busking at one of the regular tour bus stops, which was on the way to Glencoe, and about as far north as we got. It's an interesting spot, known as The Meeting of Three Waters. It's where three sources meet to form a waterfall which in turn becomes the River Coe. The three mountains are known as the Three Sisters. The gorge behind the bagpiper is where Monty Python filmed their bridge of death scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail!
The Meeting is also a popular spot on one of the Scottish hiking routes, as you can see below. Amy and John did one of these hiking paths - you can read about their hike and see the map and photos here.
We then got back on the bus for a while. Stopping halfway between Glen Coe and Oban, we had our first castle sighting. This is Castle Stalker. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it's known as Castle Aaargh:
As we moved on towards Oban, we stopped to look at the water running out to sea for low tide at this bridge (Alison is now a master of selfies using a regular camera with no rear-view image!):
Another key stop on the bus tour was Oban, a small town on the coast. It is known for a few things, two of which are shown below: McCaig's Tower (in the background, up on the hill), built by a wealthy banker at the turn of the 20th century to resemble the Colosseum in Rome, and the Oban whisky distillery. The Tower has in common with the Colosseum that it's mostly an empty shell, since construction stopped after McCaig's death in 1902. The Oban distillery is still going strong, though!
Oban is on the Sound of Kerrera, which leads out to North Atlantic. The tide continued to go out while we were there:
As we got off the bus for a lunch break, our tour guide (who was reminisicent of Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if that means anything to you) pointed a few hundred yards away at a green-roofed building, saying if you liked fresh seafood, that was the place to go in Oban. We do, so we did. This lunch was the beginning of mussel-devouring throughout the UK part of the trip. After all the protein was gone, Eero and Cielo took turns using the little bits of lettuce to wipe up the remaining juices:
In Oban, Alison also found an ice cream shop with Irn Bru flavor! Irn Bru is a soda with the tag line "Scotland's Other National Drink". It's kind of cream soda-like with an orangey flavor, too. But not exactly. The ice cream was good!
After Oban, we stopped at St. Conan's Kirk (not kidding), which has some various nice carved gargoyles outside. It's actually a relatively modern building - constructed between 1881 and 1886, and renovated in 1906 - thought to have been built using oak beams from retired wooden battleships of the time. It's a real mismash of church styles and some wacky gargoyles and decorations. St Conan was said to have had a meeting with the Devil in which they separated the people of Lorne into "really good", "downright bad" and "middling". The really good would go to the Saint, the downright bad to the Devil, and the middling were to be randomly shared between the two of them. Plus, owls, bunnies and hippos:
And then our guide & bus driver noticed some Highland Cattle, also known as "Hairy Coos", and pulled over so we could take a look:
| Our next stop was at Inverary Castle. It is the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll; the current Duke grew up there and he and his family still live there. We got to tour the parts that are open to the public. Here it is from the front: |  |
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Here's a panorama of one of the big interior rooms at Inverary, which contained lots of weapons:
Inverary's old kitchen included this large storage chest for dry goods. Apparently the Ducal family likes dried fruit!
After the tour, the kids sat down to draw the castle:
With pretty nice results:
And then we had to run for the bus!
There was one more stop, south of Loch Restil, to enjoy a beautiful valley in the fog. Eero sat down to draw it.
It was then time for the long drive back to Glasgow.
We saw a lot of nice flowers on the bus tour, as well as a good old Scottish thistle:
