Castles, Cake, and Open Road

The day after arriving in Inverness, we were up and out of the house for a road trip around the Loch Ness area. We crammed seven of us into the SUV and head for Urquhart Castle, one of the most famous sites in the area. It's one of Scotland's largest castles and spent 500 years as a medieval castle, being conquered back and forth between the English and the Scottish, until the government blew it up during the Jacobite Risings.   While it's just a ruin today, I love a castle no matter its state--and it had some gorgeous views of Loch Ness. Elowen had a great time running around as hard as her little legs can go, and posing in various spots like the professional she is--though she was very upset to not be able to go into the dungeon area with the big girls (the stairs were too steep and slick for me to risk carrying her down).  Elowen was not about to be left out of a picture, whether she was part of the particular family or not. This book ...

 After covering my favorite city from the trip, I'm hopping this blog back in time to Inverness! Inverness is an ideal place to stay for day-trips out into the Scottish Highlands, but I low-key loathed it. I will admit my experience was probably colored by an unfortunate AirBnB experience and the herds of drunks that seem to take over the city from later afternoon on; but there were some lovely sights to see regardless. So here they are!  First up is the Victorian Market, a quaint little 19th century shopping arcade with an assort of jewelry shops, tourist goods, and a small but diverse foodhall. I enjoyed a very strong matcha from Milk Bar while Elowen had some chocolate ice cream--though the vanilla clotted cream scoop we tried a few stores down before we left blew it out of the water. YUM. I had regrets about missing the chocolate shop too, because it was closed on Sundays and Mondays--so I missed out on a variety of chocolates filled with various whiskeys.  ...