Scotland, Day 5: Edinburgh to Inverness

We took a jour­ney by car through the mid­dle of Scotland along Loch Ness to the city of Inverness1, and stayed at a local bed and break­fast for the night. Inverness is con­sid­ered the Gateway to the Highlands because it’s the most north­ern indus­tri­al­ized city. It has nei­ther the urban con­ve­niences of a mod­ern city or the his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter of an old one, so remains some­thing of a ho-hum sub­ject in itself, but our short stay was just to break up the dri­ve, and along the way was some of the most breath­tak­ing scenery I’ve ever encoun­tered.

Scotland has long been on the top of my list of places to vis­it for exact­ly these types land­scapes, but my favourite things to take pic­tures of are these farm hous­es under the moun­tains. At the same time, they’re a chal­lenge to pho­to­graph because lit­tle details like sheep and streams of water run­ning through the cracks of moun­tains dis­ap­pear when try­ing to cap­ture the sheer scale of the ranges.

The sun has­n’t been around much. When it rains it’s a fine spray, almost mist-like, but it can be just so dense that you’d get just as wet as if it was com­ing down in “stair rods” as they like to say here. The clouds hang low and shroud the tops of trees and moun­tains, mak­ing you feel like you’re right at the door of heav­en.

house under mountains

These hous­es are so remote and serene, fre­quent­ly with sheep graz­ing all around, and I won­der what life must be like to live among such splen­dor.

Scotland Landscape 2

We drove on roads through val­leys like this.

Loch Lubnaig 1

Loch Lubnaig.

Loch Lubnaig 2

 

brown sauce

When I first saw a bot­tle of brown liq­uid being squeezed onto some French fries, I assumed it was gravy, but soon found out it’s “brown sauce”. I thought it was a col­lo­qui­al term, but nope, that’s actu­al­ly what it’s called. It’s made most­ly of malt vine­gar, so has a very tangy taste, and it caught me by sur­prise.

Scotland Landscape 1

You can bare­ly make out the cars and the bend of the road around the moun­tain on the left.

Scotland Landscape 4

 

Scotland Landscape 3

 

Scotland Landscape 5

 

hand battered haddock

Hand-bat­tered had­dock. Quite dif­fer­ent from the bread­ed had­dock that Dennis cooked for us but just as deli­cious.

Malteser parfait

Malteser par­fait with Griottine cher­ries. Last time I was in Scotland, I got to try Malteser cake. I love how they can make desserts out of those lit­tle round choco­late can­dies here.

  1. Meaning “Mouth of the River Ness” in Gaelic. []

8 comments

  1. Jeff, that first pic­ture lit­er­al­ly took my breath!

    It looks like you’re get­ting your fill of chips too — have you tried a chip but­ty? (sand­wich of white bread, red or brown sauce and chips)
    It’s a carb fest but it’s a goody!

    • I haven’t tried chip but­ty, but I’m mak­ing a note to try it next time. With so much beans and mash, fish and chips, it seems like most Scottish food is a carb fest!

  2. Your shots do exact­ly what you were try­ing to demon­strate — I scrolled down to the wee house at the bot­tom of the first shot and went OH!!, and had to adjust my inter­nal scale. Very cool.

    What is Griottine? What is mal­teser? Looks so amaz­ing.…

    • Griottine is just a type of cher­ry, like maraschi­no. And Malteser’s are a type of can­dy, with a sort of crispy ball coat­ed in choco­late. So good… I’m sur­prised you haven’t heard of them, they’re pret­ty com­mon in Canada, and I was sur­prised that they even made it across the pond to the UK.

      • OHHHHHH Maltballs! Yes we have them… did­n’t know the oth­er name for them. But Griottine I have nev­er heard!

  3. Scotland is def­i­nite­ly on my list of places to vis­it while in Europe. The land­scapes are amaz­ing. It’s won­der­ful to see what you see.

  4. Speaking as true Scotsman, I can tell you exact­ly what it’s like to live amongst such splen­dour. It’s shite.

  5. Hi.
    Could you maybe tell me the exact loca­tion of the house in the first pic­ture? That is so beau­ti­ful!

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