Monday, July 14th

The plan for Monday was to take the train to Inverness and we discovered that we could catch a train at 7:10 in the morning, getting us there about 11-ish. We made it... I can't say we were happy or perky about it, but we got on the train and started traveling north. The scenery was beautiful and there were even pockets of snow in the mountains! At least we're pretty sure that's what they were - don't know what else it could have been. We saw a lot of green hills, trees, fluffy sheep and cows. Very lovely.

Once in Inverness, we nabbed a taxi to take us to our hotel, again too early to check in, but we wanted to dump the luggage. I never realized that hotels would do this, but it's nice to know. We got directions to the nearest bus stop and trekked out. First, food! There was this restaurant that advertised "All American Food" - I'm not sure that it was honesty in advertising, but it hit the spot. Next, we found the hop on/off bus tour and took a jaunt around the city. It was raining, but we all had our umbrellas, so it was all good.

Our first stop was the castle - very picturesque, on top of a hill, looking over the city. Unfortunately, it is currently in use as a courthouse, so there was no going in, no tour. We got nice pics and then went down the hill to the info center. I hit the gift shop while Holly got the bus schedules interpreted.

We then roamed the city, hitting a cathedral, walking over the bridge over the river (which may or may not have been the River Ness - I don't have the map handy), and we walked on the bouncy bridge (which when you walk on it, it feels like it's bouncing, rather creepy if you ask me.) On our way back to somewhere, (I don't know where - Inverness really screwed with my internal GPS, which isn't all that great to begin with - I never knew where we were!) we discovered this old church, build in 1148 and some nice ladies talked to us about it while my footies rested and Holly and Tom looked around. A beautiful church and the ladies were so friendly to chat with.

Then again, while continuing on our wandering, we discovered this used bookstore/cafe in another old church building. We had time to kill so we went in for some light browsing and maybe a nosh! We all found something to read, got something to eat, and sat and rested out of the rain before discussing our plans for the rest of the evening. Tom wanted to hit a whisky tasting at a whisky store so Holly and I took a cab back to the hotel, rested and read our books until a James Bond movie came on TV. When Tom arrived back at the hotel, he told us that after the tasting, he discovered the bus he needed wouldn't be around for another hour so he popped into a pub that was having a trivia night. He joined a team in need of a fourth and using his prowess in esoteric American crappy movies, helped them win!

We turned in... it was a short day, but we needed the rest.