Scotland, April 2004

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This is the story of our trip in Scotland, in April 2004.
The pictures on this page are my choice for the most unusual and beautiful (aka boooring!) places.
Each link on this page leads to the album page, with much more pictures.
Click on the pictures in the albums to get them bigger.

		*Preparing the trip*

Team : David, Georgia, Ioana and Silvia. David is in charge with the car preparation, maps, sandwiches, drinks and credit card supervisor. At the end of the day we have enough food and drinks to go even to the Moon. Georgia is the official trip photographer, Ioana is the official teenager. I am printing the trip itinerary, send mails for hotel reservations, packing The weather is good - cloudy but at least it is not raining.
		*Day 1, Tuesday, 13 of April*

Hawes Inn	We're off ! At 7 o'clock in the morning we manage to be ready loading the luggage and we leave Halifax in our way to Edinburgh. Boring motorway travel along the M6 till Moffat, from there we take the 'Scenic Route' and the views become beautiful. David initiates the contest: who's the first to see an authentic Scottish man dressed with a kilt. Our first stop, for one hour, at Rosslyn Chapel, a total mysterious place, south Edinburgh. We reach Edinburgh Castle around noon, just in time for the One O' Clock Gun fire. I help Georgia to miss it but I get dead scared. Afterwards we have a short walk in the Princess Street shops, then we head to Quensferry, the first night stop at Hawes Inn. It is a great place to stay in, the Forth Rail Bridge is right on top of our rooms, the pub downstairs is nice and cozy. General impression : the time allocated to Edinburgh was way too short...
		*Day 2, Wednesday, 14 of April*

Culbin Sands	We spend some time in the morning for a couple of more pictures with the Forth Rail Bridge, we cross the Forth Road Bridge and our next stop is the Scone Palace. We are all coronated as kings and queens on the Moot Hill, then move on to the next objective, Blair Athol (great shopping for David) and a short stop in Pitlochry for lunch. We decide to cross the river for a visit to the Hydro-electic Dam. David and Ioana are having a good time enjoying themselves by swinging the suspension bridge for a while, totally unaware of the other people on the bridge and the notice which forbides this :). Finally David sees the 'Please do not swing...' announcement at the other end of the bridge so they swing some more. We stop for a couple of minutes at the Blair Castle but decide to skip it. Late afternoon we arrive in Nairn, our next stop for the night. We stay in Glebe End B&B. Very nice place, close to the beach, a very friendly welcome. We still have one hour till dinner, Angela is providing us with some bread for the birds, so we decide to go and see the sand dunes and the sea birds on the shore. Good choice, the view of the sand being carried by the wind, in large dunes, is unique. Dinner in the sophisticated (and far too posh) Sunny Brae Hotel. After dinner we come back in Glebe End and David is invited by George, our host, for a Scottish whisky drink (a wee dram or two!).
		*Day 3, Thursday, 15 of April*

Clava Cairn	We have a great Scottish breakfast in Glebe End then we are in our way to Clava Cairn - the ancient stone place. We are quite lucky - there is nobody around so we 'get' the place for ourselves for a while. We try to figure out the life 3000 years ago - it is not easy :). We have a short stop in Fort George, Culloden battle fields ( just to buy the books ) then decide to go north to visit the Dunrobin Castle. The trip seams to be endless - we start getting the 'not another castle' remarks , finally we are here. The castle is a fairy tale castle, the gardens are beautiful and we arrive just in time for the falconry show. It is definitely worth seeing this (you get slapped by a sleepy owl called Bonzy or something). It is already afternoon so we change our direction, from now on we are heading south. We pass Inverness (no time for stopping ) and travel to the next destination, Loch Ness. It is too late to visit the Urquhart Castle but we get a pretty good view from the Loch Ness shore. We spend some time looking for the monster, no sign of it. Maybe next time :). We start having problems with the car - changing gears is almost impossible (monster influence?). Still we stop for a couple of minutes in Invermoriston, the views near the old bridge are great. Lots of pictures, we try hard to catch all the scenes on camera. Next destination is Stronlossit Inn in Roy Bridge, the stop point for the night. As we approach Roy Bridge we are already getting a great view of the snow capped Ben Nevis mountain. We leave the girls at the hotel to unpack er waste time and do their hair and nails... and decide to go to Glen Roy, which is very near. We have no idea what it is, according to the map is a natural reservation. So we keep looking for trees and bees and miss the 'Parallel Roads'. But the panoramic view is fantastic - we can see all the mountains around, some of the peaks are covered in snow. Soon we have to go back, it becomes more and more difficult to use the car. We are taking a look in Glenspean lodge Hotel which is near, unfortunately we can not book a table for dinner, so we decide to dine in our inn and go to bed earlier - we start to feel tired after free days on the road.
		*Day 4, Friday, 15 of April*

Loch Leven	Good news: finally we get the sun and a bit of blue sky. In Fort William David is driving for about one mile behind the big truck that makes the dotted white lines on the road and transform all of them in a continuous, sinuous white line to the despair of the machinery driver. Finally he let's us overtake him. After another 5miles David stops laughing. We take a route around Loch Leven. It is a majestic area, white snow peak mountains all around the lake. Glencoe and Ballachulis are beautiful small villages on the shore. We pass the Stalker Castle - The Monty Phyton Castle Aargh., then we have a short stop at a Sea Life Center where we meet a very friendly fish :). At Conell we decide to drive east to Loch Lomond. A few stops near Loch Awe. Next stop Glasgow. David is checking Richard who came in the morning for a kiosk installation, then we have a nice Italian lunch. We arrive home late in the night, the car is behaving very strange. The next morning it did not start any more...(ha ha ha)