June 20-22

The end is in sight, we fly home tomorrow...

(Note: picture uploading is taking forever at this hotel, it'll have to wait until we get home...)

Here's a recap of the last few days...  On Sunday, we went to Scone Palace, the place where kings and queens of Scotland were crowned for centuries.  The palace itself was nice, as were the extensive grounds.  Our visit happened to overlap with a big multiday music festival of 80s music, so we had a little background music as we enjoyed the grounds.  We went for a very long walk around the property, met all sorts of animals (peacocks, furry highland cows, a donkey, ponies, etc.) got lost in a giant hedge maze, learned what a pinetum is, and learned how the Scottish view North American geography (hint - they think New York is where Atlanta really is...).

On Monday, we left our Edinburgh base and moved west to the Fort William area where we took the Jacobite steam train (as seen in Harry Potter as the Hogwarts Express) north to Mallaig.  The drive to Fort William was pretty with all the mountains and lochs, but those roads are really narrow!  I will be happy to be back driving on familiar roads ago soon...  It was a beautiful train ride both to Mallaig and back, though Mallaig itself isn't the most exciting of villages...  We stayed at a large bed and breakfast that seemed stuck in the 70s.  It is not a place I would stay again, the musty smell was unpleasant...

Today, we took a ferry out of Oban to the aisle of Mull and visited Duart Castle, home of the MacLean clan.  It was high atop a cliff overlooking the sea in a very pretty locaction.  The castle itself wasn't super exciting compared to the others we visited, but the island was lovely and the ferry trip there and back was also quite nice.

We then drove back to Edinburgh for our final night before we fly to Lindon and then Boston tomorrow.  I will probably go back later on and write more extensive recaps of each day at some point...