We left Inverness today and decided to go to Glen Ord distillery on our way to Skye - it was about a 30 minute detour, but we learned that as far as scotch goes the distilleries that are on the north east coast produce the smooth, sweet, caramelly scotch that Jay likes - whereas where we are headed they produce the peaty, smoky scotch that he doesn't...so we wanted to visit one in this region before we left and Glen Ord was the closest. The flavour profiles, we learned from the owner of the restaurant where we had dinner last night, are because of the water they use in their scotch - the water on the north west end travels through a lot of peat and so that flavour is prevalent in the scotch itself. Whereas Spey, which is the area that McCallen, Glenlivet, Dalwhinnie, etc, are distilled, they have clear spring water and thus a smoother finish.
This is the distillery.
From there we drove about an hour and a half to Skye. Jay stopped for a pee at the side of the road and I took this picture (in the other direction!)
And then we switched and Jay started driving. We went through another area where the road was only one car wide but two directions and came across this tunnel - Jay said "there's no where to f'in go there - watch out if a car is coming the other way!"
Just as we were about to turn right to head towards the bridge to Skye (we decided based on geography we should take the bridge onto Skye and the ferry off, so we'll do the ferry in 2 days) there was a brown tourist sign that said Eilean Donan Castle 3 miles. Since we were so close we couldn't not go!
I personally don't like the next photo because I hate people in them..but Jay liked it and it's a nice photo of the castle.
Where's Waldo? Can you find Jay in this photo?
We did go inside as well, but you're not allowed to take photos.
From there we went to Portree, on Skye, to get some lunch. Jay was still driving so I got to get a couple more pictures..but for every 1 picture taken out of a moving car window that actually works there are 500 that don't. It's so beautiful, but you can't even tell!
We had a great lunch in Portree, late again! We actually only had the choice of 3 restaurants in town that are open after 2:30pm..most close between lunch and dinner service - we ate at The Granary on the recommendation of a local shopkeeper. As an aside, Jay thinks he could make some good money here as a dentist! We finished lunch at about 3:45 so we ended up stopping at a grocery store after to just pick up a couple of croissants and apples for a light dinner in our room...And wine and cider of course. Today is the first day the "fat sack of fat" comment was made - he lasted longer then I thought. I'm having a glass of 6£ Malbec now and just finished my hazelnut chocolate croissant.
It started to drizzle on our way here and Jay said "it's too bad it's raining". I said "it's not raining, it's really just misting". When we arrived we were greeted by Marie, the B&B owner, and her husband and she asked how our drive was, etc. Jay said "it was good, it rained a little bit". She said "this is really just mist..." Thank. You. We asked her about any walks close by and she sent us down the road a ways, she said if we walked along the shore sometimes there would be seals down there. There weren't, but it was still pretty.
On the way down we passed a paddock of sheep. I said to Jay "this one on the right looks like a wolf in sheeps clothing...forgot to tuck in his tail"
Now we're back in our room.
And this is the view out the window.
Tomorrow we'll do some hiking, I'd like to hit some local artisans - it seems to be a highly artsy island. Jay is happy because we have no plans...little does he know how much we'll see and do tomorrow, it's a pretty big island and I want to experience as much of it as possible!
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