We had breakfast including for me a very nice fruit plate.
And then went off to find the visitor centre at Fort William and the post office.
Before we got to the visitor centre, we found the West Highland Museum at Fort William and decided to go in and have a look. (It is free!)
We were very pleased we did. It is an excellent little museum. It has two floors and you start off in Room 1 where there is the Commando exhibition. During WW2 Churchill decided to set up an elite squad of commandoes who became the green berets and their training took place in the West Highlands. There is memorabilia including letters, medals and other interesting things. There is a natural history room, archaeology and mountaineering room and then upstairs to the Jacobite room including a silk waistcoat worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie and Jacobite glassware. The Highland Life room has all sorts of things in it, including a 19th century harp, weaponry, information about costumes/plaids. For a little museum it was full of very interesting things and an excellent way to spend some time! The museum has been added to my best of list!
Fort William itself is a lovely town. It must get very busy, there are lots of B&Bs and hotels, and places to eat. There is a nice little shopping strip, and the location on the edge of Loch Linnhe between mountain and sea is ever changing and very beautiful.
We went into the visitor centre and the girl there was very helpful and suggested the places she thought we should see. The first one was a ruined 13th century castle just on the outskirts.
Then we travelled on to the Glenfinnan Monument, which is a memorial to the Rising of 1745 and purportedly where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his Standard on the 19th of August. The monument is a tower with a statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie at the top. You can climb the monument and as it is at quite a stunning location we decided to do so. The only thing is... To get out of the tower at the top there is a smallish hatch with not much room!
It was worth it though!
A "funny" thing is happening to some places in Scotland... They are being overtaken by Harry Potter mania. Glenfinnan is also where the viaduct is that featured at the start of the 2nd Harry Potter movie. We were going to do the train trip from Fort William to Malliag and back, but because we stayed a couple of extra nights in Yorkshire, we decided to do the trip by road instead.
You can see the viaduct from the monument.
We don't think the train was running, as we didn't see any sign of it. There were tourists around, but not that many.
We had lunch at the visitors centre, the soup was delicious.
We then went on to Mallaig, following the coast road.
Mallaig has a car ferry that goes between there and the Island of Skye, we didn't take the ferry, but we did see it!
We drove back to Fort William and stopped at Neptune's Steps which is a series of locks to take boats/ships from Fort William/Loch Linnhe to the canal and on to Loch Lochy, Loch Ness and then Inverness. There were two boats waiting in the top lock when we got there, waiting to access the canal. It would have been interesting to have seen their progress up the steps! What an amazing feat of engineering! I feel like I've been saying this all trip!
When we got back to our lux accommodation, we made a booking to go to tea at the Currag Seafood Restaurant. We had a lovely meal... I had scallops with cauliflower couli, then baked cod on a sweet potato and zucchini rosti, a delicious salsa and a green paste which may have been coriander! Dessert was the best! Rhubarb and Apple crumble with ginger ice cream. The ginger ice cream sweetened and spiced up the crumble and was absolutely delicious! I will be happy to go back there again!
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