Thursday 21 November 2013

Lochs and castles

Driving west from Edinburgh in the late summer this year we took both the high and the low roads
along the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond ...


where road signs start to appear in Scottish Gaelic


(How much more interesting does Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain sound - hear it pronounced here -  than Campbeltown, once, though no longer, a centre for whisky ... Now Campbeltown Loch is a beautiful place/ But the price of the whisky is grim/ How nice it would be if the whisky was free/ And the loch was filled up to the brim) 

and the cattle are distinctively Highland ...


(I could never get a close-up of these beautiful, shaggy, shy creatures who took off every time I came near. Perhaps if I'd spoken Gaelic to them ...)



Looking onto and over water becomes mesmerising in these parts ...
for young lovers too


the town of Inverary a reflection in the water ...



... its castle, seat of the Campbell clan, now better known for having been the setting for last year's Christmas special of Downton Abbey (in which the Granthams decamped en masse for a spot of hunting to the fictional 'Duneagle Castle' owned by the unfortunately named cousin Shrimpy).


Loch Fyne was a welcome pit-stop for lunch ...


with bucolic views of water and green hillsides


(and this fine vintage Jag in the car park)


But not for long. The road further west was beckoning ...



4 comments:

  1. Dear Karen,
    How lovely to see you reenter the blogosphere with such a wonderful set of photos.
    I haven't been to Scotland nigh on these forty years…..
    so it was bliss to see it captured in your blog.
    Hope all well in England. Everything going well here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Karen from another New Yorker, joining Elizabeth's happiness to see this blog from you.

    Goodness, now I am really sorry not to have contacted you when I was recently in London, but...I never get to stay long enough to see everyone I want to see. I always plead...next time!

    You've been to a Scotland that is more outdoors than the Scotland I have loved visiting. Now I am inspired to get out into that glorious open air. And even travel farther up into the outer isles.

    If you visit my blog, you will see that I am trying something new.

    xo

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  3. A thousand years ago I was in this place ---
    Happy to see it again through your eyes.
    Happy to BE seeing through your eyes again!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What magic places you bring into meine Stube hier!
    How in the world did this one post not make it onto my blogroll? Or was I asleep that day?
    So beautiful.
    Hugs, M.

    ReplyDelete

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