Second Day Travels Through Scotland

When we woke up this was our view, there was a crazy rain storm that night! :)

Even though it was raining we went on with our plans to see the Dunvegan Castle! :) 

We were not able to take pictures inside the castle, it was so beautiful and elegant!

We made it to the back of the castle and saw this back gate that acted as an entrance from the water. This is an original gate.

This was the view walking up from the gate to the castle.

This is a wall that faced the water, as you can see its also a wall that had all their canons ready to defend the castle.

After we finished looking around the castle we decided to walk around the beautiful gardens!! :)

It was really a beautiful and very large estate! :)

We thought this tree was cool, its branches seemed to reach everywhere!

More of the gardens as we walked around! :)

A view of the castle from the other side of the water! :)

After we saw the castle we ate at their little cafe! :) I had potato leak soup and Nathan got a spicy chicken sandwich! They were both really good and it was really nice to have something warm.

While we were driving to our next destination we saw this beautiful bridge! It's just so breathtaking!!

The roads here are so narrow it was very scary

While we were driving we saw this sign and decided to check it out! :)

It was really beautiful here, like everything else! :)

We found out that this place was once where a huge battle was fought! You would never know it by looking at it! It was kind of a strange feeling.

Some panoramas of the beauty that we saw as we drove further! We pulled over a lot! :)

Nathan let me drive while we were up there too! It was actually a lot of fun! Only a little scary! :)

We found a random castle as we were driving! :) We later found out that this castle is one of the most well preserved castles. 

This is one of the cool bridges that is only a one lane bridge but takes both ways of traffic. Super weird at first but you get used to it! :)

We decided to stay in a hotel this night!!! It was a great price, really nice and really cool!!!!! It was almost like it was an old mansion turned into a hotel! :)

This was that hallway leading to our door.

They upgraded us to "the blue room" with an amazing view of the lake!!! 

The view

Trinkets in the hallway

The owner of the hotel invited us to enjoy some drinks at the bar downstairs. Since they were so nice to upgrade our room we couldn't say no, so we ordered sprites, except the bar tender didn't have any sprites so we really had soda and lime! :)

A picture of the bar.

We found ourselves a table.

This was the front of the hotel.

I thought this was cool

The hallway on the left brought you to the bar and the one to the right brought you to a sitting room, kind of like a living room.

The stairs leading to the rooms

Looking down from the stairs

More random things as you walked up to the rooms

Good night.

First Day in The Highlands

This was the beautiful view we had when we woke up that morning! :) 

The first thing we did that morning was finish our drive into town where a visitors center was so we could get a map of the area. While we were there we found this book! :) haha

After that, we topped the car off with some gas! :)

Then we walked around the town and found a lock for boat passage between loch's (lakes).

Welcome to Loch Ness! As we walked around the town we decided to walk to the edge of the lake! :)

If you look closely you can see Nessy! ;) Unless your eyesight is going bad then you just need to take our word for it! ;) haha

Later we went for a little hike! It was a chilly morning.

It was a beautiful hike with beautiful views!

Nathan took a panorama of Loch Ness looking down from the town.

On the road again.

We decided to get out of the car for a bit to enjoy a little more of Loch Ness.

Nathan took another panorama! :)

The scenery here was just so unbelievable! 

A view from the road.

We made it to the Eilean Donan Castle

A view from behind the castle.

Steps that lead to the back of the castle.

Okay so this picture has a fun story behind it!! :)

This is a room that no one else was able to see!

 While we were in the castle looking around at things we saw a couple areas roped of to the general public and me being a curious person decided to ask one of the workers about the rooms that we couldn't go into and what they might have been used for. The man that we talked to was Richard and he was probably the best person to ask because he ended up talking to us for over an hour!

He showed us around the castle and told us stories about its history! He told us how the main hall that we were standing in had eyes and ears in the walls and then proceeded to show us where some of the holes in the walls were and where they would spy on their guest to see if they were really friend or foe. 

He also asked if we liked magic tricks and had us stand on one side of a large painting of the man who restored the castle, look at his shoe (which was pointing at us) and then had us stand on the other as he stood in front of the painting he had us say the magic words "Richard made me smile" and then look at the shoe again and to our amazement it was still pointing at us. He told us stories that made us laugh so hard, it was seriously the highlight of the trip! 

Another cool fact about Richard is that he was in the movie Highlander which also features Eilean Donan. He had a replica of the sword from the movie and he let us take some pictures with it! :) He really liked us and we really liked him! He was the best!

Oh also I forgot to add that he would always say that we were from "Americaland" and the we had now met a real  "Scotland country boy". 

After we talked to Richard it was almost time for the castle to close and they were setting up for a wedding in the castle so Nathan and I quickly saw the rest of the castle. As we walked down we saw the Kitchen.

It reminded me of Downton Abbey 

As we left the castle we took a picture of the gate! So much history!

After we left the castle we were taking pictures and we ran into Richard! :) He stopped to say hello and ended up talking to us for a while longer! He is our favorite! 

This picture was right after we asked if we could get another picture with him we stood there for a second, he smiled, and then he said "wait don't you want the castle in the background? not my car?" haha and the camera happened to captured that moment! :)

After we moved he wouldn't smile. :) He thought it would be funner to give weird faces so we could remember how much fun we had! :) haha

After this he said he liked us so much that he gave us Scottish flag pins like the one he is wearing above his name tag! We had so much fun getting to know him! We were sad to go but we are happy to know that we will always have our Scottish friend named Richard! :)

Our last look at the castle as we left for our next destination! :)

Another fun fact: this castle serves as a secret MI6 base in the James Bond flick "The World is not Enough"

This is a picture as we left and part of the drive as we entered the city 'Kyle of Lochlash'

We decided to stop here for food because Richard told us that it was the best place to get fish and chips!! :) He was SO right! :) YUM!

Inside the restaurant they had this news clipping! :) I thought it was really funny! :)

So I don't normally like fish and chips so I got a hamburger! It was really really good! :) and WAY bigger than we thought it would be! 

Nathan got the fish and chips! Oh man it was delicious!

We ran into this as we walked back to our car! :)

Yup its a mine!

A picture of the name of the town so we could remember where we got it! :)

After dinner we hit the road again! :)

As we were driving we came across this beautiful area with lots and lots of sheep! :)

We decided to pull over to enjoy the view! It was beyond words!

I just don't think the camera could capture the true beauty of this place! These sheep most likely have the best view in the world!

As we continued our journey we watched the sun set!! :)

So beautiful!

We made it to Dunvegan to see the Dunvegan Castle but they were closed so we decided to find a place to sleep for the night! :)

We sat and watched as the sun went down some more! :) It was 10pm.

This is what it looked like around 11:30pm! :)