My Scottish fairytale

Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Due to time constraints, my trip to the Isle of Skye required sacrificing any plans to visit Athens, so I found myself full of anticipation with high expectations for the long weekend ahead. My adventure began in a fashion I was now accustomed to, with flight delays and last minute gate changes (these have developed into a household joke), but the flight flew, and I arrived in Edinburgh safe and sound just after midnight making good use of the public transport system and a couple of dodgy alleyways (thanks for that, Google maps) to find my way to the hostel I was staying in. Grateful for 24 hour check-in and a comfy bed, that was me.

 Starting off bright and early Saturday morning, I found the Haggis Adventures (whom I would highly recommend) tour group and off we went.
First stop was the William Wallace memorial. Having visited Stirling Castle previously, it was quite nice to get to see the memorial as well with awesome bonus views and a fun wee walk up the hill.

After another quick stop to talk to Hamish the Highland cow and his family, we stopped by the mountains in the highland country (I think it was land from the Campbell clan, but could have been the Macdonalds) and walked up another hill by a little waterfall where we got to hang out with a group of deer. All along the way we were told stories of the horrible wars between clans and between the English and the Scots which added a somber note to an already mystical and untouched feeling the landscape provided. 

We had a couple more photo stops at the mountain range providing the UK's only ski fields, at a memorial for some members of the Special Forces who died in one of Churchill's training schemes, and at a castle on a loch, neither of which I can remember the names of.

We then stopped for another little trek to a waterfall with apparently epic views which unfortunately we had to imagine due to the clouds in the way.

Heading to Portree Harbour, a nice little port town, we stopped for a late lunch, where the chicken soup I ordered turned into tomato soup at some point during the 30 minutes I was waiting for it, but a good tasting bowl of soup nonetheless. I squeezed a nice wee walk in by the harbour before we were off again, to Skye at last, for dinner and a bed.

Skye, the home of the fairies! The eerily silent landscape paired with the low lying clouds following us around on our adventure made it easy to see with a little imagination why it was dubbed as such. 

The following day we stopped at a river by the home of the fairy king where if you lay down and submerged your face for seven seconds you would have infinite youth, unfortunately my lack of bravado prevented me from participating - looks like my skin's getting old after all! 

We had a couple more scenic walks around the beautiful Skye, a stop for lunch at another nice wee harbour village before leaving her to her peace and her rain in favour of a Nessie hunt. Our last stop on the way was the Summer House where J. M. Barrie, a Scottish author was said to come for his writing inspiration, including among other things, for Peter Pan. It was a beautiful spot and you could almost see Tinker Bell flitting among the trees along the river edge.

Arriving at our hostel for the night, we managed to squeeze in a ride on Loch Ness before dinner. Although the Nessie sightings were lacking in sufficient elements of credibility, there were plenty of dead mountain goats that had fallen down to the lake edge the boat crew were happy to point out, giving the names they'd assigned each one as they went. Scottish humour I've deduced is quite dark in general, probably a reflection of the difficulty and death painting most of their history. 

It was quiz night at the hostel which rounded the evening off nicely as we somehow won, an effort I contributed all of one answer to!

The following morning began with a trip to Flodden Fields, the site of a famous battle between the Jacobites and the British government where most of the a whole lot of people died due to one person with too much power making a silly decision, then after surrendering, most of the captives were massacred. It was a sobering encounter with history, a reminder of where I've come from and why it's so important to learn from these stories to avoid repeating them. 
By late morning we had arrived at Tomatin Distillery, producers of a Highland single malt. I found it all very fascinating, the process of distilling, then re-distilling, repeatedly until the alcohol content reaches 70 to 90%, then having to leave it in the barrels until this reduces to around 45%, seeing the vintage barrels and how much evaporation takes place.

Due to one particular difficult child with an early flight who shall remain unnamed *cough* Aimee *cough*, we had to get back to Edinburgh by a certain time, so the afternoon was a bit of a rush, but we did manage to fit one more stop in, at a beautiful little church by a river, before arriving back just in time for me to get on a bus to the airport for my flight. 

All in all it was a pretty epic wee weekend where Scotland managed to impress once more.