Scotland Day 2 - Inverness to Edinburgh

 The bed and breakfast we stayed at last night was wonderful! The bed was very comfortable (even if we were exhausted!), the bathroom was large, and the breakfast was delicious! In fact it was the best breakfast we had on our entire trip!

Homemade blueberry pancakes, bacon (that was more like thick ham), scrambled eggs, and homemade bread with homemade jam. So yummy! And the owners were so friendly and gave us suggestions of what to see near Inverness.

Loch Ness is very long and narrow. 

This was the map of travel for the day. Our first destination was to drive around to the other side of Loch Ness to see a castle.

Urquhart Castle lies on the shores of Loch Ness. We didn't want to pay the high fee (£24) to go walk through this castle since there wasn't much there to see, so we just took photos from above.

As we were leaving the castle we spotted a female Ring-necked Pheasant on the grounds.

The following photos were taken around Loch Ness between Inverness and Urquhart Castle. I loved seeing the countryside!

Then we drove north of Inverness to Moray Firth. It is an inlet of the North Sea where you can sometimes see bottlenose dolphins and seals. 

Unfortunately, we didn't see any wildlife. 

But they did have a nice gift shop where I bought a cute miniature watercolor painting of sheep for my sewing studio :)

Next we drove through Cairngorms National Park, covering the Cairngorm range of mountains and moorlands. This photo shows the River Findhorn, which is one of the longest rivers in Scotland.

We got snowed on a bit through the mountains! This road is a Carriageway - basically a larger road going both directions. They also have dual Carriageways which are divided roads with 2 lanes going both directions. So much easier to drive on than the country roads!

And there are roundabouts everywhere! Even in the middle of the dual Carriageways! If you are getting off on the first or second exit it's ok but when you need to get off on the third or even fourth exits it becomes a free-for-all and it's scary!

We stopped to fill the car with "petrol" at a BP petrol station. The petrol is sold in liters instead of gallons! There are .26 liters per gallon which makes this petrol £6.17 / gallon. The exchange rate right now is $1.30 / 1£ which makes their petrol $8.01 / gallon!

Most of the moors in Scotland are covered in heather. I only wish I could have seen this in bloom! The heather blooms from mid summer to mid fall.

Of course there were more sheep! I saw a few Highland cows as well but never where I could stop and get a photo.

I loved the old farmhouses of stone!

We stayed at the Dakota hotel in Queensferry (Edinburgh). Steve has stayed there before and it's a fancy, nice hotel. (I forgot to take a photo of the hotel so this isn't mine.)

This dog statue is in the hotel lobby at the entrance to the restaurant. I had to take a second look because it actually looked quite realistic! He's reading the menu :)

I had French Onion soup with artisan bread at the hotel restaurant. I love soup and it's cold in Scotland so it's a win! It's also a much more affordable meal than most which doesn't hurt. Soup ranged in price from about £3 to £6 instead of a typical entrée around £12 to £20 or higher.

I had room service deliver dessert later :) I noticed they have a lot of ginger treats here. This was vanilla cheesecake on a ginger crust topped with mandarin oranges and a blood orange sauce. It was incredible! Another wonderful day of travel in Scotland!