First off i must say that i had a wonderful two day wedding this past weekend in Chattanooga! Thank you Catherine and Kulbeer for a great experience-more on that later. Now for some vacay photos- we just returned about a week ago from Scotland. Oh my goodness it is the most beautiful place i have ever seen! I would love to move there for a while. The people are soooo friendly and the history is amazing. Gill, which is my maiden name, is Scottish so it is such an experience to go over and see which clan that my family belonged to. The country is so sparsely populated (to compare, New York City has a population of around 8 million), the whole of Scotland has just 4 million.
We met our friends Perry and Nancy over there, and stayed in Stirling the first 4 nights at Broomhall castle. Let me go ahead and start with pictures and i will describe as i go along…

This was our hotel/castle. Pretty awesome. Below is the William Wallace monument which is perched on a hill. You can see it from most every point in the town.

The first morning that we were there, we made a visit to Stirling castle, which has so much history, from Mary Queen of Scots, to William Wallace (for those who need modern day history, he was portrayed in the movie Braveheart by Mel)



Robert the Bruce

Below is the view from the castle grounds which is high on a crag (Scottish for hill).





The next morning we all got up and headed east to Carnoustie so the guys could play their first round of golf. On our way out of town we stopped for a tour of the Wallace monument which was incredible. Wallace is known as the guardian of Scotland- it was unreal to see his sword. Ha, ha! Seriously ..


The Sword…






Ok on to Carnoustie… I have to show you these two pictures (don’t judge the swings)… these were taken at 10:30 at night. The sun never setting kind of freaked me out, there was only about 3 hours of darkness every night.



Above one of the many bartenders we encountered over the week. The next photos are of the journey (they actually say that there! “Have a safe journey”)we made up to Loch Ness.. I cannot describe the beauty of the drive there. the pictures don’t do it justice but i tried…





These guys are EVERYWHERE! If there is not a charming stone cottage that you are looking at, then you are looking at sheep.

This was the bridge where they filmed Harry Potter (when the train is on it’s way to Hogwarts). It is just out in the middle of the Scottish wilderness.

Below is a sign we found at a rest stop.



So we finally made it to Loch Ness and guess what, the castle had closed 5 minutes before we arrived. i still got a shot of the famous Urquhart castle. Castles are everywhere btw.


OMG! Guess who!!!

The next morning i got up and went for a wee walk by meself on this path, right in front of our castle. These enchanting paths are all over the place.

Every home looks about like this…

After my walk Nancy and I headed to Doune Castle while the guys went golfing at Troone. This Castle was so rustic-they filmed Monty Python and the Holy Grail here.




The view from the top.
Me and Nancy..


Oh did I mention that the high was about 60!



Highland cow.
Downtown Stirling.


For our last two nights we traveled to Kenmore in Perthshire. When you pull into the tiny village you pass the oldest Inn in Scotland, so what do you do? Go have a drink at the pub!



Oh Yes, Scotland has the happiest dogs on earth! They all look like they are smiling! They hang out in all of the restaurants with their owners and they are all so well behaved.

This place is exactly what you would think that a Scottish pub would look like- the kilts just topped it off. Unbelievable!


At our house we had a couple of friend there to greet us.


View form the back balcony



It was time to go and I hated to leave. I got a few photos on the ride back to the airport. Can’t wait to go back!





Sorry for such a long post, but i had to share my awesome experience!
Aug 12th, 2011 at 2:35 pmhepg:
What stunning creatures! They look as if they are talking in these photos!