Blogs from Dornie, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe

We woke to a chilly but another glorious morning and headed off to take pictures of the most beautiful Eilean Donan Castle. The story goes - there are alot of stories aren't there? It only helped me to love the country more and more, so I am hoping I can share the love... :-) Anyway, the story goes that the King had 5 daughters who were very beautiful but far too picky and couldn't decide on a husband. Two Irish fishermen turned up one day and had to spend time in the castle while their boat got fixed and the two youngest daughters fell in love. As the youngest daughters couldn't get married before the older daughters, the Irishmen were quite desperate to marry and told the King they had 3 older brothers back home who ... read more

Geo: 57.2764, -5.51363July 8, 2010Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland6:30-8:15 a.m.What a poor quality hotel! The walls and ceilings are super thin so anytime someone walked outside in the corridor or in the room above. Then about sometime in the middle night the fire alarm went off for a short 20 seconds waking all of us up. The beds are so hard! The only redeeming quality of this place was its food. When I came down to the lobby, once again the Canadians were first ones down followed by me. A single monotone alarm was still sounding in the lobby. A worker was vacuuming and ignored our question about the alarm (One man thought it was his hearing aide and started to fiddle with his ear until we told him it was the alarm). While sitting and ... read more

There were 10 of us staying at the Ross-shire Red House in Dornie. What fun we had. The main reason why we landed up in Scotland was due to the fact that the McNeil Clan were asked to perform in the "Blas Highland Music Celebration". Paul and Tracey MacNeil performing great traditional musical sounds with the piano and bagpipes. Pauls playing reflects his appreciation of the Gaelic Language and culture, Tracey an excellent piano player of contemporary style and traditional style of Cape Breton Island. Father Rob MacNeil is a Gaelic singer from Barra Glen, Cape Breton Island. Paul & Tracey's two daughters Jessie Helen and Nora also were included in a final singing family event which was held at a sold out performance at the Eilene Donan Castle. They performed along with the Henerson Clan. ... read more

This was definately my favorite day of my whole time over in Europe (and probably of my life!). I was in Scotland, which already made it a great day, but I got to visit the Eilean Donan Castle (I have wanted to visit it since I lived in the Netherlands). Ross had sketched me a picture of it for his first Christmas present for me, so it was even more special that we got to go see it together. Jen, Joe, Matt, Kristen, Ross and I first went to the Visitor Center to see if we could go across the bridge to the castle. While the others stayed to look in the shop a little bit longer, Ross and I headed out toward the castle once we found out we could go. As we were ... read more