Inverness 1

 I caught a bus from Skye to Inverness for 2 pounds - the Highland and Islands special deal at the moment.

This took me up the length of Loch Ness, so it was very scenic.

Once in Inverness I was able to leave my big bag at the Youth Hostel in Luggage storage, and start exploring the town.  I picked up a brochure on City walking tours and rocked up to join one at 2pm. It was a great way to get my bearings, and learn about the city.

Central Inverness is very walking friendly and quite compact. The city itself is expanding rapidly but the new developments are on the outer edges, and they have very strict heritage rules for the inner part, so it was very attractive. 

The River Ness flows through the city and is surprisingly shallow - you could walk across it in most parts. There are several pedestrian bridges crossing it as well as the main street bridge, and walkways on both sides. There is also a lovely walk across several little islands (The Ness Island walk) where the paths meander through forest/garden areas. They also have some quirky seats.

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and a Nessie

The town is very vibrant, with lots of eating places in the couple of main streets, a number of them offering live music. There were also buskers about, and one evening, arriving back late from a tour, I discovered the Aberdeen Pipes and Drums band performing in the middle of High Street. Apparently they were doing a rehearsal for a festival coming up.

The Youth Hostel is about a 10 minute walk (up a hill) from the High Street, so it was easy to get about. It's obviously very popular - there were several large groups there (including a German school group) and lots of others, but it was very efficiently run, with good facilities.

The 'castle' is very predominant, but although there have been a series of castles there since 1057, this present structure was built in 1836 as a Court and prison. It has recently been refurbished at a eye-watering cost, and re-opened as the 'Castle Experience', which is basically an audio-visual presentation of The Highlands. I didn't spend the 22 pounds, but I did enjoy the outside and the gardens that they have created. Local opinion is that they felt the money could have been better spent.

Here's a few of the interesting buildings - there are SO MANY churches around, but many of them are being repurposed, like this one. I love the purple doors!

The Old Town Hall is magnificent - they built a new one and this one isn't being used . Such a waste!

Out the front of it are two wolves, with their paws resting on skulls

There's a funny story attached to these:

By the way, I saw the pictish stone in a museum a couple of days later

The dogs were too high up to be able to photograph with my phone.

Much of the stone from the previous castle was used to build some magnificent Victorian houses up on the hill. There are two colours of granite - red and grey. Both are local but from different areas.

And on the other side of the river there was a row of old hotels, each a slightly different style.

The first night I went to a small venue where they had a couple performing traditional pieces, a storyteller and a couple of young girls doing some highland dancing. Very relaxed and enjoyble.