Day 7-Leaving Skye

Day 7 was the day we left the Isle of Skye.

We packed up our things the night before at our Youth Hostel, and got up at 7:00 to have an early breakfast.  Our plan was to leave by 8:30 so we could get to Eileen Donan Castle by 9:00.

As you leave the Isle of Skye, you have to cross over a bridge and then you pass directly by Eileen Donan Castle.  We figured we'd take some pictures and head on over to the east coast of Scotland where our next B&B was located.
 Here are some pictures of the castle.  We didn't go inside for the sake of time, but just took pictures.  It really was beautiful.  Also, it is the most photographed castle in Scotland and used in several movies.

After taking our photos of Eileen Donan Castle, we visited their gift shop.  What a find!  They had some really great items in their store and we spent way more time than we thought we would.  It's always fun to spend money.  

Then we left and headed down the road again.  Our next stop was at Urquart Castle.  This castle was a ruin, but it was very popular.  Again, we found some great gifts in the gift shop, then went out to explore the castle ruins.  It was a huge castle at one time with several out lying buildings included in it.  

The castle is nestled on the shores of the famous Loch Ness.  We looked for Nessie, but didn't see her.    We did buy some nice souvenirs though of our trip to Loch Ness.  And Jess and I both took off our shoes and put our feet in the waters of Loch Ness.  Brrrr...

We left Urquart Castle and drove down the road some.  We found a place on Loch Ness to stop and get a few souvenirs, and we laid out our blanket and enjoyed a relaxing lunch outside on the grass.

Next, we continued our drive to the coast.....but we had another stop along the way.   We all wanted to stop at the historic battle site of Culloden.  It was here where the Jacobites fought for their freedom, but did not win the day.   The clans were disbanded and it was illegal for them to not only bear arms, but they could not where their treasured clan tartans either.  Such a sad day for Scotland.

The Culloden Battlefield is just south of the city of Inverness, and we still had a ways to go yet.  We headed into Inverness, and then on towards the coast and our little coastal town of Banff-actually, Gardenstown on the waters edge.  Just before we got there we saw some signs for the Clava Cairns.  

Now, this wasn't on our list of things to see, but the write up in Rick Steve's book on Scotland sounded interesting, so we decided to go check it out.  

We followed the gps directions which told us to take this little one track road--which cut right through a farm.   As we were driving, we spotted the famous wee coos that Scotland is known for and we just had to stop and take pictures.  It was our first hairy cow sighting.  

We were so excited to be taking a picture of these cows!  So funny.  Then....uh oh--here comes the farmer!  He came out of one of his buildings towards us.  We thought he was going to fuss at us for being on his property.  It turned out that the farmer was very happy to have us there taking pictures of his cows.  He told us the story of how all these people were flocking to the Clava Cairns and wanting to see the standing stones.  He told us that all these women were wanting to hug the stones.  Then he said, "Forget about hugging the stones!  They should hug me instead."  Lol-we all laughed at that.  He told us that he tried talking to everyone that came down his path, but then he spent so much time talking that he didn't get anything done!  But he just had to come out and talk to us seeings how we had a car load of women in it.  Too funny.  Oh, then he did say that he'd brought down the hairy cows from his other pasture on purpose because everyone wanted to see them.  So he would be obliged if we could leave a wee donation for taking their picture.   We weren't sure that he was actually serious, but then as we continued down his road, there we saw a little black bucket attached to his fence with a sign under it saying: Donations for the wee coos

It wasn't very far from there that we saw the sign for the Clava Cairns.  We pulled in and parked and headed into the area.  There was a plaque along the fence giving information about the history of the cairns. 

As you can see, the stones did not work for us.  We are all still here.  LOL 

Next we headed back out towards our B&B...still a ways away.  But, finally we arrived in Banff.  Our B&B was situated along a little street, just big enough for one vehicle and all the cars parked on the left side of the street.  We drove down it and it dead ended.  We had to turn around and then we spotted the B&B.  

Louise's room

Netty, Nan, and Cindy's room

Jess and Rachel's room

By that time we were so hungry!  We asked our host , Kathleen where a good place to eat would be.  She recommended the pub next door to us so we went over to have something to eat.  When we walked in there was a couple sitting at the end of the bar.  The man asked how many were there of us as we kept walking in one after the other.  It was an extremely small place, with only a few chairs to sit down on in front of a fireplace.  We ordered our drinks and food at the bar and sat down to relax.  The couple held a good conversation with us and seemed disappointed when we went into the "restaurant" part of the pub to eat. 

 LOL-there were three tables in the restaurant and one had people at it.  We ate our dinner and headed back to the B&B, which was truly just next door.  Tomorrow was going to be our laid back relaxing day.   We had no definite plans, just wanted to have one day to take it easy before heading back to Glasgow.  So we went up the the  'garden' area that was part of our B&B and took in some pretty views of the sea. 

This was on the corner of the pub's bar.  LOL

Goodnight all!  Sweet dreams!