Blogs from Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 12

TOUR 07 – Best of Britain - Trafalgar – 14 Days – THU, 15 SEP 2022 - Day 8: On to Fort William and the Scottish Highlands - Journey along Loch Lomond, whose bonnie banks were immortalised in the well-known Scottish song. We arrive in Glencoe and remember the MacDonald clansmen who died tragically in the 1692 massacre which led this place to be called the 'Glen of Weeping'. At the World War II Commando Memorial near Fort William, we admire views of Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis. Our day in beautiful surrounds comes to an end with a cosy dinner at our hotel located within the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands. Hotel – The Laggan Hotel Newtonmore, Scotland; Included Meals - Breakfast, Dinner... read more

I leave the Highlands after passing Kilchurn Castle in my previous blog at . This fourth and final blog of my ancestral visitations to castles in Scotland covers my visits to the Lothians. 31 Aug 2022 Wednesday. My next stop of the day is Doune Castle which was originally constructed on the site of a Roman fort in the 1200's, but restored to its current structure by Sir Robert Stewart, 3rd Duke of Albany (17th ggf), the younger son of King Robert II of Scotland (18th ggf). His ascendancy continued when his elder brother, Sir John Stewart, Earl of Carrick (17th ggf), gained the throne as Robert III (the name change was to avoid connection with the earlier English appointed King John Balliol). However, King Robert III "The Lame" suffered a debilitating injury from a horse ... read more

This is my third blog about my ancestral visitations to Scotland. I recommend reading my previous two blogs at and before reading this one. My destination today was Tain, Ross-shire, where my Ross ancestors lived. According to my DNA, I'm 36 percent Norwegian, 32 percent English and Northwestern European, 27 percent Scots and a bit of Welsh and Swedish. Linda is 16 percent Scots, but as mentioned before, we share many Scottish ancestors. My grandmother, Anna Elizabeth Weaver's parents were James McGee Weaver and Anna Elizabeth Ross. The Weavers were from Germany with Johannes Weber (5th ggf), a Moravian who immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s to avoid religious persecution. In this line I found Anna Elizabeth Luther (12th ggm), the sister of the Reformer Martin Luther, making him my 12th great granduncle. My Ross ... read more

One of the positives of coming to the UK during the summer months was to be the fact that we would be escaping the heat in Turkey. Well, there was quite a heat wave happening in the southern part of the UK so luckily our next commitment for cat sitting was farther north in Aberdeen, Scotland. We had heard that some of the trains weren’t running due to the heat of the tracks, but again, our luck was holding out and nothing interrupted our travels north. There also have been railway strikes, but fortunately none of the strike days have been on days we needed to travel, at least yet. We are keeping our fingers crossed that will continue. We had heard that the train ride from Newcastle along the coast was a beautiful one and ... read more

August 23. We retraced our route back to the Scottish mainland then headed south to Fort William for a short visit with Ron’s old friend Ian (who always wears a kilt) and his 96 year-old mother, Margaret. They live in an old stone house that they ran as a bed & breakfast until they retired. From there we drove down to the village of Corran, parked the car and took the ferry over to the tiny village of Ardgour to visit the grave of Ian’s life partner by the parish church. Then through more of the Highlands to Loch Lomond. We spent the night at the Callander Hostel in the charming village of Callander. August 24. Eight miles away from Callander we had breakfast in the village of Doune at a cafe run by two friendly ... read more