Loch Ness

This weekend is a four day holiday for the kids, so we decided to take a little trip.  We drove to up to Inverness on Friday afternoon and spent the night in a hotel.  We woke up the next morning and headed to the famous Loch Ness.

We went to the Loch Ness Exhibit first.  It was a big waste of time and money.  We were expecting something a little different.  The exhibit was basically a movie about the history of the Loch Ness Monster separated into six or seven sections as you move through the building.  It was interesting to learn more of the history behind the legend and the research that has been done to disprove it, but I don’t think it was anything that I couldn’t have read in a book.

Our next stop was a tour of Loch Ness by boat.  We spent about 40 minutes on a small boat with about 12 other people.  The tour guide was an older Scottish gentleman and he was great.  He even let each of the kids take a turn steering the boat.  Devon was convinced that they would see Nessie, but there were no sightings.

After our tour on the boat, we made our way to Urquhart Castle.  We watched a video on the history showing that it burned down a few hundred years ago.  It really is just the ruins that are left.  It was incredible looking around.  There was one particular part that had a winding staircase and it was very narrow.  It was nice once we got to the top but I was nervous that one of the kids would take a tumble.

The castle is right on the water; we could see it from the boat on our tour.  We went down to the water to see what it was like and it was freezing!

We saw a few signs like the one in the photo below.  I'm sure Loch Ness is pretty popular with tourists so I guess they need to be reminded about the driving rules around here.

We purchased a membership to Historic Scotland so now we have free entry to many of the castles around Scotland.  We’ll probably head to Edinburgh next since it is less than an hour drive away.  It was a fun adventure and we’re looking forward to many more.