Tomorrow we’ll start week 7 of our Epic Adventure and, luckily, we’re out in the country with less to do. There’s no way we could have kept up with the pace we had in the larger cities and we’re enjoying quieter days. Today we started with a 20-minute drive to Urquhart (pronounced er-cot; I know….why so many letters?) Castle, a ruin which dates from the 13th to 16th centuries.
The Castle was originally held by Clan MacDonald but then, because of their ruffian ways, the King took it away from them and gave it to Clan Grant. Over the next 200 years, the Castle was raided by the powerful MacDonald Clan including the Great Raid of 1545. They ran off with a ton of stuff.
Early in the Jacobite Uprising when King James was first exiled, Clan Grant was on the side of the government and garrisoned the Castle with 200 of its own men but not a lot of weapons. The Jacobites laid siege to the Castle and, while Clan Grant was able to hold out until the end of that part of the war (remember the war went on for over 60 years; this was before Bonnie Prince Charlie). But to prevent the Castle from ever being lost to the Jacobites, Clan Grant blew the place up. In 1715, a bad storm took the rest of the Castle down and what we saw today is what’s left.
After touring the Castle we had our picnic lunch while we waited for our 1-hour cruise on Loch Ness. As you can see from the pictures, it was a dreary day but not as cold as it looks…probably around 60 degrees. But, it got a lot colder on the boat as we headed into the wind. The cruise went south down the Loch until we reached the Castle, then turned back around.
Peter was pretty disappointed not to see Nessie, but he consoled himself by touching the water of the Loch. It was very cold.
After the cruise and the ceremonial touching of the water, we celebrated with delicious gelato then headed home for the afternoon. It was a wonderful day. Tomorrow we head north about 60 minutes to the Dunrobin Castle. It looks beautiful in the pictures so we’re excited to see it.