Today we visited the home of the Loch Ness monster!! Yes, we took a beautiful boat ride on Loch Ness, but first we stopped at the town of Inverness. This Princess ship tour was very well organized and our guide Simon was very knowledgeable and funny. We were told Inverness is the fastest growing town in Europe and there was in fact lots of new housing about. We visited St. Andrews Cathedral, which interestingly charged an entrance fee of 6 pounds. I inquired about this and the docent explained that the church needs many repairs and this was just one way for them to raise the funds. I couldn’t argue with that and was happy to pay it and a bit more.

Once to Lagnalean, we boarded our boat for a trip down the River Ness, which also serves as a canal system. It was a gorgeous but chilly day aboard the boat; the scenery was beautiful and the commentary entertaining. The boat company, Jacobite Loch Ness Cruises, served delicious “Scottish hot chocolate” which was translated as hot chocolate with whisky. I told Marsh that he’d never have to suffer the taste of plain old regular hot chocolate again!

While we did not see the Loch Ness monster, we thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride. Back on the coach, we saw a little more of the countryside including locations of past Royal Air Force bases, from WW2. In fact, the RAF headquarters were located the Scottish Highlands, where they could hide and scheme their attacks.

One last note from our guide, he said that Scotland is being bought up by foreign billionaires. Thousands and thousands of acres of land have been purchased, many of which were the holdings of vast estates, owned for generations by clans (families). These new landlords are letting the buildings and farms go to ruin, firing all of the workers who have attended the estates for generations, killing all of the wildlife and many just planting trees for “carbon off sets”. It was a cautionary tale that was a sober end to our tour.

Back in port, we elected not to take the shuttle into Invergordon, instead grabbing a sandwich onboard, enjoying the afternoon sun and looking at the beautiful highlands from our balcony.

Tomorrow: Edinburgh