This is the part of my trip which was pure "cross my fingers and hope for the best". As a photographer and a theater person, it was a tough choice between a day at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a visit to Loch Ness. As it turned out, the decision was made simple by the fact that rooms are booked solid in Edinburgh a year in advance for the festival. It was easy to get a room right on the Loch for a reasonable price.
Took the cab from the awful hotel outide Glascow to the train station downtown, and had time for a small bite to eat before boarding the 10:10 Virgin Rail non-stop to Inverness. It was a very scenic ride, lots of dark threatening clouds, and the scenery included astone fences, sheep, cows and not a lot of people. We arrived at Inverness around 1:30 and the first item in my itinerary was to find underwear. I was out of clean shorts and socks, having tossed the dirty ones to save backpack space.
Wandered around town a bit, it's very quaint and picturesque, and was surprised to find a posh Marks & Spencer within a stone's throw of the station. A friendly tourist helper courtesy of the local chamber of commerce pointed it out to me. Bought a package of shorts and another of socks, feeling very strange in that fancy store with a pack on my back.
Back to town, I went through some shops, buying a Scotland T-shirt and a pair of plaiud boxers. Back to the station, I hired a cab out to the hotel, which was along Loch Ness, about 45 minutes from town. The driver also set me up with a return cab for the next morning. Another scenic ride, pleasant conversation, though it took some repetition to get through his Scots accent.
The Clansman hotel turned out to be very nice, good accomodations but no internet access. There was a diner and gift shop attached, and I bought a couple of Nessie T-shirts there.
There was a tunnel under the street going to the Loch waterfront, where they were offering boat tours of the lake. I signed up for one, went back to the hotel for a snack before needing to report for boarding. The tour was very scenic, the lake is huge and very beautiful. This tour docked at Urquart Castle, the remains of a fortress which the English knocked down after one of the many England-Scotland wars, it's now a national park and very well maintained.
We spent an hour there, then took the boat back to the hotel dock.
Had a very good dinner in the hotel's upstairs restaurant, with extremely quick and friendly serving staff, and a lovely view of the lake. No Nessie sightings outside of the ones in the gift shop, but I can Photoshop that in later. :-)
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