Scotland V: the Road to Invararay

We had to return the Vauxhall on Thursday afternoon, but were in no particular rush to get back to Glasgow. Instead, we plotted a winding route through Argyle, looping down to the Campbell clan seat at Inveraray before returning to Loch Lomond and truly starting the march back to Stuttgart. Once again, I found myself both enjoying the challenge of driving on the left (my lane placement had much improved) and frequently wishing we had set up A as a second driver. It's hard to gaze up the craggy shoulders of a Ben while keeping your eyes on the road! With a frequency and style particular to Scotland, the landscape tripped us into gasps, oohs, and ahhs at regular intervals. You never knew when a castle would appear between the trees just as a patch of sunlight skidded off a hill to illuminate it! 

Kilchurn Castle in a splash of sunlight

Inveraray Castle is a famous stop-off on Highland tours, and although the structure one sees is largely 17th-19th century, its roots are medieval. The part that we (and a tour bus of Swiss tourists) were allowed to tour through included Rob Roy's sporran, displays of weapons that were probably used during Jacobite uprisings, and a supposedly haunted bedroom... next to a room full of family memorabilia. Elephant polo trophy, anyone? The house is still the residence of the current Duke of Argyll and his family.

Some of the bayonetts have notches in them...

Nearly as impressive as the house were the grounds, including a large formal garden and both wild and of woods. The clouds had broken as we walked the crushed gravel paths and wove around dripping foliage. Bits of elegant stone architecture lured us deeper into the grounds and away from the tour busses. We didn't have time to take the full Woodland Walk, but we crossed one of the Stone Bridges and followed the road towards a white tower. It was just another of those moments where we thought we had stumbled into a fantasy story, or at least into a Jane Austen novel!

A pausing for an Austen moment

 

Our Inverary wanderings were fueled by Roxy's Cafe in Oban. When I woke up that morning, I realized it would be the last "real" morning in Scotland. The focus on the next day would be getting to Edinburgh, then getting to the airport, then getting to Stuttgart. One of the joys of travelling with a coffee- and book-loving friend is the shared joy of finding a cozy space, enjoying a drink, and opening individual books to read or write. So it was that I had my last stomach-bursting dollop of clotted cream, sandwiched between Buckley-sized meringues. It was a lovely farewell to the Highlands, as we returned to Glasgow and tried not to think about the fact that we had less than 24 hours left in Scotland...

Buffalo-sized meringue, or meringue-sized buffalo?