Scotland: Glencoe and Loch Lomond

We do realize that spending five full days in Scotland is not enough to see even half of what it has to offer. The area is so beautiful!

If we had driven straight from the house in the Highlands to our home, it would have taken us nine hours. So to break up the drive, our plan was to stay in the area of Loch Lomond and Glasgow.

On the way there, the route I planned took us trough Glencoe, meaning “Valley of Weeping”.

I think this was my favorite place out of the ones we visited, besides the view from our house. The scenery was simply spectacular.

This is the place where a few movies were filmed as well, including Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is where a set for Hagrid’s hut was built. Some of the other movies you might have heard of are Highlander, starring Sean Connery & Christopher Lambert, Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail (beware when crossing the bridge to the Lost Valley!) and Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson.

Historically, this is a very gloomy place. In 1892, a few years after William, Prince of Orange, took the throne in England, and after the Jacobite uprising (when Scottish Highlanders did not want to accept the new English king as their ruler),  Glencoe Massacre happened. Basically, the king sent his people to Glencoe area to convince them to pledge allegiance to the new monarchs. The Clan MacDonald hosted them for ten days or something like that, and then the servants of the king attacked their hosts early in the morning, killing thirty eight members of the clan, plus forty women and children froze to death after their homes were burnt (it was February in Scotland). So, as you see, a very sad story surrounds this place.

I felt guilty for smiling for this picture.

Not really.The place was so beautiful that it was hard not to smile.

We did not have much time to hike around there, so a few of us just jumped out too take a few pictures. These are so much better than pictures we take while riding in the car-haha.

The boys immediately were drawn to the water.

See? One minute it’s cloudy, and a moment later the sun is out.

The road from Glencoe to Loch Lomond is infamous in Scotland. It’s windy and so-so narrow. It took a long time to go over mountain passes, but we enjoyed the view along the way.

We were behind this caravan for ages. In this particular instance, both vehicles had to stop, turn in their mirrors and pass. The caravan still scratched its side on the truck’s mirror.  In fact, it was almost funny how many side view mirrors we found broken on that road!

We stopped over at the Loch Lomond coast to let the kids run around.

It’s another beautiful and famous lake in the Trossachs National Park.  This loch is the largest body of freshwater in mainland Britain.

Mark IS jumping in this picture.

And I had to look carefully to see if Mark is standing or jumping funny here.

Now that’s a proper jump.

Within fifteen minutes, most kids were soaked although the water was freezing. Some brave soles a few yards away from us were actually swimming. Brrr…

From the lake we found our way to Braeholm in Helensburgh. It is place we spent our last night in Scotland. Braeholm is run by Aggie Westons, the Royal Naval charity which has been serving the naval service since 1876. It’s a place where sailors come to spend a few days to relax. It’s also open to other branches of the military, and apparently even visiting forces like us.

We had a huge Indian dinner that night (most dishes were sadly too spicy though). We won’t talk about how long it took us to find that place right in the middle of the city centre.

That’s the place.

After a good night rest we were ready for our final six-hour drive home!

Lyana.