Visiting Deanston Distillery. Only in Scotland do 14 hour day trips start with a whisky tasting at 10 am. The distillery was originally built as a cotton mill. They source all of the barley from local farms and use water from the River Teith, which runs just next to the mill. Scotch is aged in American Oak barrels. The copper stills are made in Edinburgh.
Below: Visiting Glen Coe, the most famous glen (valley) in Scotland. The site of the famous 1692 massacre. Breathtaking and eerie.
We drove through some of the Scottish Highlands, and on the same road where James Bond is driving the Aston Martin on his way to the castle in Skyfall. The pine trees all over Scotland have been planted for paper and timber. All of the pines are not native, but fast growing species from Scandinavia.
Ian and I at Loch Ness. The lochs (lakes) in Scotland were created by glaciers and are very similar in shape and depth to the Finger Lakes. The waters of Loch Ness have always been mysterious because of their oily and dark look. Oils from surrounding peat leech into the waters. I'm pretty sure I saw Nessy! Urquhart castle is on the shore of Loch Ness.
Below is Ben Nevis in the background. Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK, elev. 4,409 ft. Ben is the term for mountain, glen for valley, loch for lake.