On Land Again

Today was the end of our cruise, and although I am excited to start our exploration of the Highlands and then to see our friends in England, I am sad to part with the friends we have made on this boat. The sights have been interesting, the scenery rather breathtaking, but the best part of the experience has been the people we met here. I will always remember Shirene

Roger and Sandra,

Annemarie and David,

and Marie.

After we disembarked, John and I took a taxi to Glasgow. We are renting a car and driving around the Highlands for five days. I made the reservation a while ago as I wanted to get an automatic. I figured driving on the left side was enough of a challenge without struggling to remember how to use a clutch. The only place it appeared that I could get one was at the Glasgow airport. But just as we were approaching the city I looked again at the confirmation email and double-checked with the driver to make sure that the location given was in fact the airport. "Nay," he responded in the thickest Glasgow accent I have yet to hear, "that's in the city center." We did manage to finally make it to the Budget car office and pick up our car. 

I managed to negotiate several hundred thousand roundabouts - okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration - and we were finally in the countryside. I only planned for us to do a short drive today, so we are spending the night in Drymen - pronounced something like "drim'n - in the Loch Lomond area. It's a very cute town, and we are staying at the Winnock Hotel there. 

The front section of the hotel, housing reception, the restaurant, and a few rooms, dates from the 18th century. We were dazzled by the lovely flowerboxes under the windows and the hanging baskets. 

We are staying in a new wing of the hotel carefully hidden in the back. It lacks some of the charm of the old section, but I do not really want 18th century plumbing, so I guess the modern part is probably better for accommodations.

We had dinner at The Clachan, which claims to be Scotland's oldest pub, established in 1734. It was everything you could want an old Scottish pub to be including a crowd of old guys at the bar who no doubt came every evening it was open. 

Tomorrow we are heading up to Glencoe.