Inverness

We were originally planning on taking the early train to Inverness, but when we heard the time of departure, we had a change of heart. The thought of being at Queen Street Station for 7:07am (while on vacation) and knowing that we are half an hour away from there by train, didn't exactly turn our proverbial crank! Working backwards, we would have to have been there 10 minutes before we went to sleep.

We ended up taking the 10:10am train instead and got into Inverness at 1:50pm. While it's a long train trip, watching the scenery go by made the time disappear.



The Highlands were impressive and seeing the hillsides dotted with cows and sheep was amazing!

To pass the time on the way in I did some Sudoku (what else?) and wrote Heather a postcard. I couldn't pass up sending a postcard of a Scotty dog sitting in a patch of heather to her. Before we left we forgot to take our stamps with us, so I had to get one when we arrived in Inverness. Fairly straight-forward, easy task, right?

WRONG!

When we left the train station we popped in to the hotel next door and asked the desk clerk if we could buy a stamp from him. He sighed at me (apparently I interrupted his surfing for porn) and simply glared at me for a moment. He then gave us directions to the post office, which ended up being wrong. Long story short, Josh had to make an important phone call so we walked back to the hotel so he could have some privacy. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed an MBE store and walked in. I got my stamp and mailed the postcard! What a kerfuffle!

From what I remembered Inverness to be when we visited in 2000 to what it is now is simply heartbreaking. All the nice, quaint shops that were around then went out of business. A large mall opened up and forced all the "little guys" out. Inverness, which is known for scotch and sapphires, had very little of either! Our original plan was to take the late train back to Glasgow, but after viewing the town and a quick visit to Inverness Castle , now a court building, we left.