Scotland, Day 2
September 3rd, 1998 by Jim Clark
We left the Balmoral early and drove north to Stirling.
It was raining and windy and generally miserable. I love weather like this! We skipped the Stirling Castle because it was a long walk in the rain, and instead we chose to check out the Wallace Monument.
The Wallace Monument is an enormous tower at the top of an abbey. It’s a long climb through several rooms and lots of stairs, and the view of the city from the top is incredible. Lots of cool stuff about William Wallace, and lots of Braveheart merchandise for sale.
Continuing north to Loch Ness, we stopped for tea in a little village called Pitlochry and I bought a scarf. Loch Ness was another spot that I was determined to see because I had been interested in the legend of the monster when I was a kid. Once we reached Loch Ness we were quite disappointed that the rain had caused the cancellation of the loch tours by boat.
That night we stayed in the Polmaily House in Drumnadrochit along Loch Ness. It was a rickety old B&B, and as usual I had issues with the shower. It consisted of a hand nozzle situated in a little cradle in the bathtub, and when I turned on the water — only slightly — the nozzle leapt out of the cradle like a possessed snake and whipped around the room, spraying water and thumping off the walls. I swear the thing was attacking me with scalding water as it whisked around wildly, and it took me about five minutes to get the water turned off. Then when I actually started to bathe, it would scald and then freeze me at about thirty second intervals.
In the morning we went to the Loch Ness Monster Exhibit, which is basically a bunch of rooms that have pictures of the “monster” and they play pieces of this video as you walk from room to room. It was a very low-budget tour, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.
Along the drive at the Loch we stopped to take some pictures and met a bagpipe musician along the side of the road. Between songs on the bagpipe he would walk around in circles and mutter to himself and comb his hair over and over again. He was a nice fellow and played the pipes well but his brogue was so thick I could barely understand him.
We took a long drive through a valley along the Dee river. It’s beautiful country with long, winding roads and lots of sheep. Finally we arrived in Edinburgh again and checked into the Caledonian. It’s also a very fancy hotel with an excellent view of Edinburgh castle.
This morning we took a fantastic tour of the castle. Then Lisa wanted to do some more shopping which made me insane because I really hate to shop. But I went anyway and still managed to have a good time.
Tonight there was a spectacular fireworks display as part of the Edinburgh festival that’s going on here this week. It was an hour-long show with some of the best fireworks I’d ever seen.