The Scottish Highlands are a large historic region of Scotland and encompasses the northwestern portion of the country. This part of the country is a gorgeous mountainous region with very rugged topography and is filled with Lochs and Glens! While in Edinburgh, I took a tour of the famous Scottish Highlands to see some of it’s gorgeous sites!
The tour company I chose was Rabbie’s Trail Burners and I selected the Loch Ness, Glencoe, and Highlands tour. I wanted to explore the Highlands and make a visit to see Nessie, the Loch Ness monster! The tour only consisted of 16 people on a small mini-bus but it was a long 12 hour day. Some of the highlights were Loch Lubnaig, Glencoe, Loch Ness (Fort Augustus), and Cairngorms National Park.
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Callander and Loch Lubnaig
We boarded our mini-bus and left Edinburgh around 8am. We drove to the quaint town of Callander and along the way we passed Linlithgow Palace and Stirling Castle. Our Scottish tour guide told us wonderful tales of Mary Queen of Scots, William Wallace, and Scottish history. We stopped in Callander, the gateway to the Highlands, for about 30 minutes to grab a quick snack and hit the restrooms. After Callander, we drove to Loch Lubnaig to capture pictures of this stunning lake and stretch our legs!
Glencoe
We drove through the beautiful Highlands taking in the wonderful topography. Our tour guide spotted some Highland Cattle (Heilan Coo) on the side of the road and we hopped out to take about 1,000 pictures of these cute cows!
I honestly could have stood there all day watching them, but we needed to journey to Glencoe next. We stopped at the Three Sisters of Glencoe, which were three beautiful snow capped mountain ranges. It was absolutely stunning but about 48°F up there in March!
Fort Augustus and Loch Ness
We finally made our way to Fort Augustus, the southern point of Loch Ness, around 1:30pm. We had 1.5 hours to eat lunch and walk around the lovely Loch Ness. We had a choice for an optional 1 hour cruise on Loch Ness but we (and the majority of our tour group) chose to forgo the lake cruise. We, instead, ate at a pub called The Bothy, then toured this little town and walked around the lake looking for Nessie. I was honestly a bit disappointed that we did not make it all the way up to Inverness, but considering it was another hour up north I understood.
Unfortunately, I did not see Nessie so we jumped back into the van and headed to the beautiful Cairngorms National Park.
Cairngorms National Park
We drove into the western portion of the national Park to Drumgask and made a quick 15 minute stop. It was stunning! Cairngorms National Park covers 1,750 square miles of Scotland with beautiful wooded areas and rivers! This was my favorite stop on our tour…I mean look at these pictures!
On the way back to Edinburgh we made two more quick 15 minute bathroom/shopping breaks and arrived back by 8pm. It was a very, very long day but I would recommend this trip just to see the stunning scenery of the Highlands.
Until next time,
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