June 13, 2022 - Inverness, Scotland

I realized this evening, after a discussion with some people on my bus tour today, that a lot of people confuse the following terms - England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom.  Here’s a very brief explanation.  And for those who don’t follow world news and politics, this may become extremely useful information for you to feel better informed.  I’m going to try and keep it as simple as possible without going into too many details or history of the politics.   So, let’s do this backwards - The United Kingdom (UK) for short, is made up of the following “kingdoms” - England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.  These four kingdoms are found on two islands that are very close to one another just north of France across the English Channel.  Great Britain makes up the three kingdoms that are part of the east island - Scotland to the north, England to the south, and Wales on the southwest side of England.  There’s also an additional portion of the top eastern part of Ireland (the western island) that are part of Great Britain.  I believe it is only 6 counties in total.  This portion of Ireland is also referred to as North Ireland, while the remainder of Ireland is officially called the Republic of Ireland.  Scotland and England fought with each other for a very long time centuries ago, but have been in a union with one another since the 1600’s and officially became united politically in 1707.  Ireland joined that union in 1801, under some duress regarding Protestants and Catholics, which is sort of why some of the northeastern counties are now part of Great Britain and are not part of the Republic of Ireland.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure where/how/why/or anything else about how Wales fits in with all this.  It’s just there as another small kingdom to the southwest.  There’s a lot of history wrapped up in this area of the world with many different conquerors and allegiances over that time period.

In listening to the average person on the street talk about the EU and Brexit, there is a lot of unrest and frustration going on between Ireland and England.  And even now between Scotland and England, who haven’t had too many major disagreements for a very long time.  The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher faced disagreement and disapproval over issues during her day.  Boris Johnson is experiencing similar disagreement and disapproval now.  It will be very interesting to watch how things unfold.  The union may not hold if they can’t come to an agreement about their mutual relationships and the important economical impact the latest decisions have caused.  It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.

So, my first stop in this part of the world was in Dublin, Ireland’s capital city, nearly smack dap in the center of the kingdom - north to south, on the east coast between Ireland and England.  I then went to Killarney which is down near the bottom on the western side - this part of Ireland has many fingers that jut out into the Atlantic.  And here, the area along the Atlantic and the coastline, is called the Wild Atlantic Way.  I then flew to Edinburgh, Scotland from Cork (further south in Ireland).  Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and lies just northeast of the country line that separates the two nations.  Edinburgh is in what is called the Lowlands of Scotland.  Today, I got on a but tour to spend a few days in Inverness and the Highlands of Scotland.

Our first stop on the tour was to see the Kelpies.  A kelpie is a water spirit in the form of a horse.  These kelpie sculptures are huge and in the middle of nowhere.

(Just a note - I made a mistake today with my smartphone.  It is clearly smarter than me.  Somehow I had the camera settings on “live” which means the camera takes a mini video.  So, for a brief moment (less than a second), every image will seem to move.  Sorry.  I’ve corrected the error tonight.  But all of today’s photos will move.

You can see how huge these sculptures are, especially in the third picture in comparing them to the size of the people walking below.

We stopped on our way in some of the Highlands.

We stopped at Fort William for lunch.  For those of you who don’t know - I’m a huge Outlander fan.  So many of these next spots are going to be from the Outlander story.  However, Fort William is nothing like it is portrayed in the series as historical Fort William itself no longer exists.

I had a wonderful lunch at the Cinema Cafe.  It was a beet salad.  So good!

We then stopped along the route to climb a nearby hill/mountain to watch the Harry Potter train go by.  Don’t think about getting a ride on the actual train.  It does exist, but the cost is about 400 pounds per person and they are completely full through 2022.  Our tour guide said, it’s a nostalgic ride, but you don’t even get to see this iconic spot while you’re on the train.  He thinks we got a better deal.

We then stopped at Loch Ness.  Although I called Nessie didn’t come, so there were no sightings of Nessie today.  Loch Ness is huge and evidently VERY DEEP!  More people have been on the moon than to the bottom of Loch Ness.  We drove about 45 minutes along the side of her and we still hadn’t gotten to the end.

We stopped for a photo op at Urquhart Castle.  Dating from the 13th-16th Centuries, the castle played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th Century.  Owned by the MacDonald clan, then by the Grant clan, and eventually abandoned.

Tonight I’m in Inverness, staying at a lovely AirBnB.  We didn’t get here until nearly 8.  I was starving, so stopped at the first restaurant I found and had nothing spectacular - just chicken.  

I’ll have more pictures of the town and our sights tomorrow.