July 16, 2018 — Edinburgh

Jim and Laurel got up early, as usual, and then went on a walk to the Royal Mile — nothing was open yet, but we enjoyed the "Closes" and the exercise, nonetheless.

Back to our apartment for breakfast with Mom, and then window-shopping at the myriad charity shops along Stockbridge's high street (we even bumped into Allen and July doing the same).  Next was the highlight of the day — meeting up with Anne, Mom's on-line "Words with Friends" friend, who lives in the Leith area of the city.  She is very jolly and we enjoyed a great lunch with her at a local cafe.

Post lunch, we strolled through a lovely park below Edinburgh Castle and then returned to the Royal Mile (this time with Mom and a million other tourists).  After a while, we met up with Dusty and Cheryl there, too.  The evening, and our stay in Edinburgh, finished up with the whole group having supper together at the Raeburn, in Stockbridge.  Tomorrow, Jim and Laurel and Mom will drive to Glasgow, while the rest have another day in Edinburgh.

Wow, it's hard to believe our wonderful adventure in Scotland is almost over ... from visiting Mairi, to hiking the highland and lochside trails, to riding old-fashioned rails, to exploring family history, to sightseeing with Clan MacDonald of Glenside from Inverness to Skye to Edinburgh, it has been a truly special summer!  Thank you, all, for joining us!

July 15, 2018 — travelling from Blairgowrie to Edinburgh

Mmmmm — we enjoyed the hot Scottish breakfast served to us by our friendly hosts at Rosebank B&B before we got on the road again, heading onward to Edinburgh.  

Along the way, in the Stirling area, we made a stop in the small town of Alva — this is where Jim's great-great grandparents got married and lived in the mid-1800's (Lothians).  It's a plain, but tidy, town dominated by a large bald-topped hill right behind it.  Being early Sunday morning, and lightly raining, the town was very quiet; luckily, we found a nice coffee shop that was open and we popped in for a bite to eat.  

Our next stop was in Falkirk, to see the one-of-a-kind engineering marvel called the Falkirk Wheel.  It's a large rotating boat lift that lifts/lowers boats from one canal level to another, as an ingenious alternative to using a traditional lock system.  Amazingly, when lifting/lowering a boat, the Wheel uses the same amount of energy as is required to boil a mere eight tea-kettles of water.  Lots of tourists (mostly engineers, I suspect) were watching the boats go up and down between the Forth & Clyde Canal and the Union Canal (a height of 24 meters — 79 feet — about a seven-storey building).

Thanks to a bum steer from our GPS, we took an unplanned detour over the huge Queensferry Crossing Bridge before we arrived in Edinburgh.  Then, upon checking in to our lower-level apartment on pretty St. Bernard's Crescent, to our dismay we realized that there is no public parking there (or anywhere nearby).  Luckily, Dusty and Cheryl, and Allen and July, were staying in an apartment just three blocks away and had an extra parking stall!  Jim and Laurel and Mom wandered through the outdoor Sunday market that was set up in our attractive Stockbridge neighbourhood, then met up with the rest of the clan at The Scran and Scallie Pub for a fantastic evening of food, drink, and live music.

July 14, 2018 — travelling from Dornie to Blairgowrie

Sadly, it was now time for Clan MacDonald of Glenside to wave good-bye to our picturesque stone schoolhouse accommodation and the pretty village of Dornie with its iconic Eileen Donan Castle.  It has been a fantastic stay here and we would have loved to extend our visit, however, 

Edinburgh was calling us onward.  While Dusty and Cheryl, with Allen and July, were heading all the way to the city today, we were going part-way (to Blairgowrie) with Mom accompanying us.

Our drive provided us with a steady stream of beautiful scenery.  Along the way, we saw the "Well of Seven Heads" on the shores of Loch Lochy (see June 30th posting for the historic notes), a grazing herd of shaggy-headed Highland cattle, the scenic town of Pitlochry (we remembered visiting here back in 1980, and it's still just as nice-looking though much, much more crowded in 2018), and a red telephone box that's cleverly been converted to a roadside library, giving away books — of course, Mom stopped to check it out and found an interesting paperback that she picked up (some reading for the plane ride home in a couple of days)!

We completed the day with a comfy night's stay at the charming Rosebank B&B.

July 13, 2018 — Dornie — Isle of Skye

Isle of Skye—Take Two!  We were up and on the road to Skye by 9:00.  The roads in Skye come in two forms:  narrow two-lane and extremely narrow one-lane with passing spots. Both are paved with Scottish prudence, ending abruptly with no shoulders.  The traffic in Skye is heavy mainly because of us tourists with our attempts to outsmart everyone else and travel the road less taken.  Today that road was the single tracks of the Waternish Peninsula.

By 11:00 we had reached our quota of sheep, ruins, and heather and had stopped in the quaint village of Stein on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.  The Stein Inn is the oldest inn on Skye and dates back to 1790. It had everything we were looking for: character, coffee, and most importantly, bathrooms.  Next we pushed on to a tannery, where sheep skins are processed and sold around the world.

With backdrops of rugged seas and massive green mountains, the scenery is bleak and beautiful and often both.  We planned for a picnic lunch and stopped by the windswept ruin of Trumpan Church to eat our sandwiches.  Let me be clear, this stop was for nutrition purposes only and not historical—we had all become pretty immune to the allure of stone ruins, which are almost as numerous as sheep.  However, when we read the plaque, it was clear that the roofless church was the site of yet another MacDonald massacre.   The MacDonalds were top dogs of the Isles and everyone was looking to topple them.  This grim tale involved the MacLeods.  

The Massacre at Trumpian Church

In 1577 a group of MacLeods killed some 395 MacDonalds by suffocating them with smoke while they took refuge in a cave on the island of Eigg.  The MacDonalds of ClanRanald planned their revenge, and one Sunday in 1578 they sailed across the Minch from South Uist and landed at Trumpan, near Ardmore Bay, where they found a group of MacLeods at worship in this little church. The MacLeods inside the church were unarmed and defenceless as the MacDonalds trapped them inside the building and laid a fire around the outside walls. When MacLeods from the Dunvegan village arrived they found the church a smoking ruin, and those inside dead.  A terrible battle ensued and the MacDonalds tried to retreat to their boats on the shore, only to find they had been stranded by the incoming tide. The invaders were slaughtered, though a single galley escaped and carried the tale of the massacre to Uist.

We left Trumpan Church and leap-frogged along single-laned roads from passing spot to passing spot until we arrived in Dunvegan, where Jim hiked up to an old Celtic rune stone on the hill while the rest visited a craft shop—being careful not to mention that we were MacDonalds.  Then on to the Fairy Pools, a short hike along a series of waterfalls and pools at the foot of the Cuillin Mountains.  Back in the cars, we drove around to the other side of the mountains and stopped at Sligachan Bridge to wash our faces!  Legend has it that if you submerge your face for seven seconds in the icy waters of the Sligachan River near the bridge (and up stream from the sewage pipe!) and you did not wipe your face and you let it air dry, you will be granted eternal beauty.  The legend is a little vague and fantastical and beauty probably has an asterisked footnote attached to it, but that didn't stop Dusty, Cheryl and Jim from giving it a go.

Supper in Broadford and back to watch the sun set over Dornie and Eileen Donan Castle.

July 12, 2018 — Dornie — Isle of Skye

Happy 83rd birthday, Mom!

The sky was truly the theme for today, as we crossed the bridge to the Isle of Skye and traversed the scenic island.  Before setting out for the day we observed that the morning weather was overcast, but looking westward from our apartment in Dornie towards the island, we felt optimistic that blue sky would appear.  And it did!  As the day went on, and as we travelled up and down the island's winding narrow roads, the sky revealed itself more and more to complement the wonderful vistas, until finally the sun set in a glorious show of pastel hues.  Our scenic views included Eileen Donan Castle first thing in the morning (just at the end of our street), the arching Bridge to Skye, sheep and white-painted crofts dotting the incredibly green hills, the dramatic Cuillin Mountains looming larger and larger, the town of Portree with its pretty harbour, the Old Man of Storr (a mountain outcrop), Plockton's palm-lined harbour, and sunset viewed back across to the Isle of Skye.

On the Isle of Skye, we also stopped at the grounds of Kinloch Lodge (the home of the current Lord and Lady MacDonald), and toured Armadale on the Sleat Peninsula (the main site of the Clan MacDonald and the Lord of the Isles during their dominant period centuries ago).  The castle is now only a ruin, but the museum tells the dramatic story of rise and fall, battles won and lost, clearances, emigration, and changing society.

In the evening, en route back from the Skye Bridge to Dornie, we detoured around via Plockton and enjoyed a delicious seafood supper at the Plockton Inn.  It was while driving from there, at the very end of the evening, that we were treated to the gorgeous sunset. 

July 11, 2018—Dornie

Scotland was beginning to live up to its reputation as a wet and misty place as we woke up to rain and cloudy skies for the second day in a row.  Inverness would soon be in our rear view mirror.  We packed up, checked out of Woodbourne House and headed down the road to Lewiston, a place where the MacDonalds once lived in the 1700s.  A walk through the damp cemetery confirmed that many MacDonalds lived and died in Lewiston in that time period, but no direct ancestors were identified.  One more stop at Carrachan House, a MacDonald birthplace just outside Lewiston, and then our group split up with Dusty, Cheryl, Allen, and July driving to Fort Augustus to root around Cheryl's family tree and the rest of us heading toward Dornie, our next home in Scotland.

The trip to Dornie was beautiful, and also exciting as we mostly followed a network of secondary roads (single track lanes with periodic wider spots to allow meeting on-coming traffic).  Arriving in Dornie was spectacular, as Eileen Donan Castle dominates its setting and even the mists held back so that our view of the castle was not obstructed.  Checking into the School House, our new accommodation, and a walk towards the Castle was all we had time for before the other gang arrived.

While waiting for a late dinner table in The Clachan, a cozy pub down the street, the ladies walked to the castle while the men watched England fall to Croatia in the semifinals of the World Cup.