Inverness to Glasgow

We got up early after staying the night in Inverness and began our journey back to Glasgow. Along the way we stopped to see a few cool sights! For about 15 minutes we drove alongside the famous Loch Ness. I always pictured the lake to be really round and deep, but it's actually super long and narrow so we were able to drive along it's edge for a long time. My professor really wanted to stop and take a tour of the Urquhart Castle but it was ridiculously expensive and no one besides him wanted to spend our money on it. I mean, it was cool and all, but after seeing so many castles and ruins we weren't really willing to spend all our money on one that wasn't as exciting as the other castles we'd seen. Naturally, we went to the Loch Ness gift shop instead and climbed on the Nessie statue, for a good hour or so. We were like a bunch of 5 year olds at the zoo. We were ecstatic. Professor Wickman? Not so much. haha

Pictures of the Urquhart Castle

NESSIE!!!!

The whole group

 Apparently they have a mini amusement park called Nessieland. Luckily we didn't mortify my professor by going here. It kind of reminded me of the ghetto Trafalga in Provo. 

The next stop was one of the highlights of my trip, simply because I am a HUGE Harry Potter nerd. In the second Harry Potter movie Ron and Harry fly a car to Hogwarts and almost end up crashing into the Hogwarts Express which is traveling on a stone bridge/track. Well we stopped and saw it! So cool! It's called the Glenfinnan Railroad Bridge.

On the other side of this valley is the Glenfinnan Monument. It's located of the shores of Loch Shiel. It apparently marks the place where Prince Charlie "raised the royal standard" at the beginning of the Jacobite Rebellion. I still don't really know what all that entails, but it was a cool stone tower that I didn't pay to go in since the view really wasn't that much better than the nearby hill which was free to climb.

 So beautiful! I just want to go back. So. Bad.

I'm not exactly sure what is happening in this picture but it makes me laugh every time. 

On the way home we traveled through Glencoe, a beautiful mountainous area in the Scottish highlands. Alexandra and I wanted to stop and go hiking somewhere, but you obviously can't really do that with such a big group. (especially when a lot of the girls complained whenever we had to even walk up hills). I still got a few good pictures from inside the van. 

Glencoe is seriously one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Pictures can't do it justice (especially pictures from inside a moving vehicle). If I ever go back to Scotland I want to explore this place some more!

From what I remember we were in a mad dash to get the van checked back into the rental place and we barely made it. After we got back we all went out for ice cream at Big Licks (not really the best name choice...but whatever) I got mint chocolate chip ice cream and was SO excited because it is quite possibly my favorite ice cream flavor. Well, it tasted like toothpaste. I guess I just fail at picking out ice cream flavors in Scotland. Luckily it wasn't as bad as the tablet ice cream this time. It's okay because the next week we discovered Nardini's, the best ice cream parlor I've ever been to. I think everyone went there at least twice during our stay. Mmm...so yummy. The rest of the weekend I spent writing papers since we'd been having fun traveling all week.