We rented a great apartment with Airbnb, a short bus ride into town and close to a grocery store. Staying in apartments is my favorite way to visit a city!
After we settled in we caught the bus into town where we pushed through the crowds for a tasty pub lunch (including some hagis), beers and funny faces.
I had heard about the Edinburgh Fringe Festival years ago while at the Vancouver Fringe Festival and in Edinburgh it did not disappoint. The city is in festival mode for a month and there are thousands of shows ongoing. While we were in Edinburgh we watched three shows, all excellent. Fringe shows are short (around an hour), cheap (around 5-15 pounds) and usually pretty quirky. We watched an improvised Sherlock Holmes mystery, a show about two pirates on a search for the sands of time (they played all the roles and had a musician to add songs and effects) and a circus show with vignettes based on famous Hitchcock movies.
The town was lovely and there were lots of great shops and great places to eat and I bought a wool shawl which hopefully will work in the cooler fall weather and cover me better than my coats. My raincoat did up on the trip but the girls said I looked like a sausage about to burst!
After Edinburgh we rented a car and drove north 3 hours to Inverness. The weather had taken a chilly turn but our apartment was nice and centrally located. The next day we headed out on a long road trip, first along Loch Ness (not that exciting actually) and then to the Isle of Skye.
Along the way we stopped at a very picturesque castle (Eilean Donan) on a small lake and we stopped to have a break.
The Isle of Skye was lovely and there were a fair number of people visiting. The road was a single lane with pullouts so there was always excitement of wondering when the next oncoming car was going to appear around the corner!
We stopped at a popular rock formation and went for a hike up.
On our way we ran into the famous midges I had read about and they were certainly uncomfortable! Once we were in the wind a bit they weren't really a problem any more. We went up maybe 400m or so and had a lovely look around the countryside.
Then we continued north, stopping for fish and chips lunch on the way. At the north end of the island we had a lovely view across the sea. Unfortunately at this point of the car ride there were no bathrooms, and no trees either and I had a baby taking up valuable space!
The next day we went to visit a whiskey distillery (Tomatin), apparently owned by a Japanese company. Apparently most of the distilleries in Scotland are owned by a major brewer (can't remember the name).
We saw how they first extract the sugars from the malted barley.
And then use this sugar water as food for the yeast fermentation step.
Then the alcohol is distilled twice in these giant copper kettles.
And ultimately aged in oak barrels.
Sachi found one from her year.
Apparently whiskey collection is a big thing and collectors are always looking out for specific bottles. They don't actually drink it, just sell it later to other people for profit. Although at this point if this is where the capital needs to be invested to make money (and also fine art I've heard, and empty apartments in London) our world economy has a serious problem. It means you can't make money in companies making things (or ideas) and how valuable is an economy based on buying stuff that other people want to buy for more money later but doesn't actually do anything (like undrunk whiskey bottles or empty New York apartments)?
After the whiskey tour we headed to Culloden, the famous battlefield that was the end of the highland clans. However, they charged a lot of money to go see a small museum and a field so instead we photographed the special highland cows (interestingly, the most highland cattle I've seen has been in Switzerland on the San Bernardino pass to Bellinzona).
Then we drove some more and had a great look of Inverness from across the river.
The next day we drove south and stopped at Stirling castle before heading to our last stop - Callander.
The village was small and very lovely and we stayed at a lovely BnB with a parlor all to ourselves. The next day we went for a hike, about 5 hours, from the village and into the moors with all the sheep farms. It was an easy hike on the road and we had a lovely view of a large waterfall at the beginning.
At the end we drove back to Edinburgh, returned the car and I took my flight back to Switzerland.
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