Highlands of Scotland

This morning we packed up and said goodbye to the beautiful Isle of Skye. Loaded on the bus, and took off on our last day of our Scotland tour...we saw LOTS of BEAUTIFUL and SPECTACULAR views!!!And we heard lots of fun stories. There was a cool story about this place...the body of water is actually in the shape of Scotland, which is why I am holding up a map with the water in the background. See it! cool eh?! There is a legend that goes along with this picture for the reason why it is in the shape of Scotland...once again I wish I had a better memory so I could tell you the cool details.
And in the true spirit of the Scotts-
there was a man in full Scottish garb playing the bagpipes!

then we went to....
there was this really cool statue there...
We stopped off here...and got out of the bus...
down to...Here! look at how beautiful! and look at how clear the water is! Ewin told us that it is completely clear and pure the water is!
This is me filling up my water bottle! The water was SOOOOO good!

Kieren decided to go for a swim...
We stopped by the store before we got out into the country and picked up some food- this is probably the BEST strawberry that I have EVER eaten!!! Oh man!!! SOOOOO GOOD!!!!

We did a lot of driving today! but it was SO beautiful I really couldn't mind much.
Plus we made a lot of stops too. We stopped to see Hamish McKay Denovan, He is a Highland Cow.
He is so Cute!!! and Really BIG!!
Our next stop was the National Wallace Monument
It was a bit of a hike up to it- but it was nice, and what a view!
Info on the monument
and the monument from farther away - on the bus.
I also saw a lot of fields that looked like this...
So I got this shot while on the bus. So pretty!
I've got to say that I am INCREDIBLY blessed in SO many ways!!! the weather in Scotland has been amazing for me! the whole time that I have been here! I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my neck, from being out in the sun and my hair was up! HA! how often do you hear of that!? Someone who goes to Scotland and gets sunburned!? Usually you just hear how rainy and cloudy and dreary it is...NOPE! not for me!!!

Back in Edinburgh we were dropped right back off at my hostle. I went on a walking tour with some friends that I had met on the highlands bus tour.



I LOVE the Streets and Architecture here!!!

Our tour guide told us about this place in front of the church where people were punished and publicly humiliated and even executed for breaking the law.
and this heart
in the ground was built where those who were waiting to be executed were held...so it is bad luck to walk on the heart, and its good luck to spit on the heart as you walk by. Our tour guide told us that once she was giving a tour and they saw a couple walk right into the middle of the heart and the guy got down on one knee and proposed- in the middle of the heart! hummmm....bad luck to start off a marriage?...lol
So on the walking tour we heard all kind of fun and scary stories...

they brought us into a room that had all kinds of old torture devices.
the scary part was when they took us underground...
In Edinburgh they have underground passageways and rooms. They were built for farmers to store their crops, but the crops were getting ruined because it rains so much in Scotland and the rain would go right into the underground passageways and rooms. So the farmers pulled all of their crops out and didn't want to use it. this is what the passageway looked like...
Edinburgh, back in the day, was full of crime and filth. There was a law passed that there were no homeless allowed in the streets - so by the hundreds they sought refuge in the underground, so they would not be arrested. Because of all of the crime and whores and filth in the underground it was not safe and the police would not go there.
Then during WWII there was a bombing in Edinburgh and many houses caught on fire. Hundreds of people ran to the underground to find refuge from the bombs and fires. There is one big problem with this...if you notice from the pictures the walls and ceilings of the underground are make of stone, so they turned into an oven and many many people were baked alive and died down there.
Now - it is haunted, per-say. and there is paranormal activity that happens there now...
because of this there is also a Wicken sect that hold their meetings in one of the rooms this is a picture of the room that they practice in...
they hold meetings about once a month or so.
This next picture is of the room that they used to practice in...
...the Wickens set up a protective circle in this room because this was the room that they used to practice in but there were bad things that kept happening in there, like members of the sect getting strangled by un-seen beings etc.
So the leader decided that one night he was going to stay in the room....over night. He was abruptly awakened in the night by loud banging sounds around the circle and going up the wall. He did a spell that reversed the purpose of the protective circle and trapped the being inside of the circle...it remains there. Apparently whenever people step into the circle only bad things happen. Our tour guide said that anyone could step into the circle if they wanted to but she wanted to leave the room first. Everyone in the group edged around the outside of it and left the room without touching the circle.
After the tour was over went to a pub with my friends...once again I am not a drinker so the 'fun' of pubs wears out pretty quickly for me. I decided to head back to the hostle to get some rest.