My First Guiding Tour in Scotland For an Italian Group
My husband is the driver, I am the guide speaking Italian and we are on our way to pick up 7 Italians for a tour around Scotland to see and visit the most diversified places and sites this country has to offer. We will cover 1,100 miles in 7 days.
Before pick up the party, we had one night by ourselves at the Arrochar Hotel on Loch Long.
Easyjet is, most of the time, on time, but this time the flight was late and I had to wait for an hour before I could see the group… Ouch!
Anyway, everybody seemed to be happy to be in Scotland.
Our first stop was the restaurant overlooking the Castle of Edinburgh. Nice view, not too nice meal…Ouch! I then guided them in the Castle and around in the Princess Park, and Princess Street (the main street for shopping) before taking again the minibus to arrive at our hotel in Perth, the Huntingtower Hotel.
Nice garden, the rooms are very large decorated with Scottish tartan colours. They are satisfied. The food was great as the environment. Ouf! The first day has ended softly.
The second day we drove in the direction of the Cairngorm National Park and the first stop was Pitlochry, a charming little village for with full of artists and one theater with yearly shows. In between I explained about the heavy and dramatic history of Scotland with all the wars and fights against England, against each clan, against the church or unwanted kings. Thirty minutes later we arrived at Newtonmore to sit for 40 minutes watching the Waltzing Waters (same as in California and Florida). They could relax and forget about the sad history. Then few minutes later we arrived at Kingussie to have lunch at the Columba House Hotel where we were the only guests! Rapid service and nice lunch.
After the meal we make them discover the Ruthven Baracks, again a story of war between the English and Scottish.
We continued towards our last stop for the day, the Boat Hotel near Loch Garten where we found very nice rooms with a small garden. Before the dinner we had a drink offered by the manager to John and myself. The group joined us later asking us some questions and just enjoying the moment being in a 4star hotel.
We had a very nice dinner. Everybody were very nice to the group and the group liked this place very much. Another good day!
Third day: Loch Morlich – Grantown-on-Spey - Inverness
To stay in a bus more than 1 hour could be fastidious. Our itinerary eventually was that we covered only between half an hour to an hour after each stop.
The morning of our third day was most for sightseeing, the only one other stop was to find how the Scottish smoked salmon was made. It was quite interesting to see the process, however, to watch the workers handling smoked salmon with nude hands made me thinking of health and safety standards!
Unfortunately when we reached Loch Morlich and its lovely beach it began to rain! Ouch! Some only followed us to see it!
We went further to visit the little town of Grantown-on-Spey in one hour stop for them to do some shopping and have a little lunch. Then we drove to Inverness for our third night at the Columba Hotel overlooking the river Ness. Entertainment hosted by us: a friend playing the bagpipes. The liked it very much and the group had fun watching me dancing and explaining the Scottish dance!
Fourth day: Inverness – Cawdor Castle – Culloden batterfield – Clava Cairn – Fort George – Inverness
Some mist in the early morning and nice weather all day! First visit the Museum of Inverness and around the Castle since we cannot visit it being a tribunal.
In front of the Castle is the statue of the famous Flora MacDonald, the woman who helped Prince Bonnie Charlie (born in 1688, James Francis Edward Stuart (the Old Pretender) was to have been James III of Britain. However the flight of his father meant that he grew up in exile (Italy) to escape to France.
Then we took the minibus to discover the Cawdor Castle and its its gardens and have lunch there. I indicated to the group where to go to discover by themselves the garden of local flowers and arboretum and the one with roses and other exotic plants before the rain comes. One hour after the rain came and we all had lunch in the restaurant inside the castle (modern and has no class) instead of the terrasse. We pursue our way to the Culloden batterfield where we explained the battle and the consequences, i.e., exile of Prince Bonnie Charlie and more control of Britain over Scotland.
After the fifteen minutes of explanations we continuedtowardsClava Cairn the site of an exceptionally well preserved group of prehistoric burial cairns that were built about 4,000 years ago. The Bronze Age cemetery complex comprises of passage graves, ring cairns, kerb cairn, standing stones in a beautiful setting and the remains of a chapel of unknown date. There one of the group meditated…
Then we went to the beach, some found very nice rocks before reaching Fort George.
Back at the hotel eveybody was happy and we had a nice meal again before going to bead quite early this time!
Fifth day: Inverness – Plockton – Kyle of Lochalsh
Through one hour and half – we stopped two times for taking pictures – through a glen we arrived in Plockton for a cruise on a large boat to watch seals and dolphins.
I stayed at Plockton with the Manager of the Italian Travel Company and we could discuss better about our “business”.
When they came back they were very happy to have been able to watch wild sea life. They eat before taking back the minibus for our next destination: Kyle of Lochalsh.
Kyle of Lochalsh is a nice fishing village neated just before the bridge which relay main Scotland to the Isle of Skye. On the other side, in Kyleakin we can see the ruin of the Haakon IV castle Moil (Viking).
The legend tells that in about 900 a Norse princess, popularly known as “Saucy Mary”, married Findanus, the 4th Chief of the MacKinnons, and they lived together in the predecessor of the Caisteal Maol whose ruins you see today. They enforced tolls on ships passing through Kyle Akin by stringing a chain of boats from Skye to the island of Eilean Bàn, and another from Eilean Bàn to the mainland.
First night in the Hotel Kyle and private entertainment made by John playing the accordion.
Sixth day: Isle of Skye (Talisker distillery and in the foot-steps of Flora MacDonald)
We took our breakfast at 8am sharp to depart at 9am for tasting whisky at the Talisker distillery. It is not the best – and John always says his preferred whisky is the Glenmorangie – and I also agree that the building is nicer… 45 minutes of visit and explanations of how to produce a good whisky and tasting. Some bought a bottle…
We then went to the direction of Uig, to see the Folk museum and the tomb of Flora MacDonald.
Driving around the isle the group had the possibility to see more about the typical landscape of the Isle and small cities. There is only around 9,000 inhabitants for 1,656km2. We then had lunch at Portree to go further north for the Kilt Rock cliffs and the Old Man of Storr.
The Old Man of Storris a rocky hill on the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye. The hill presents a steep rocky eastern face overlooking the Sound of Raasay, contrasting with gentler grassy slopes to the west. The area in front of the cliffs of the Storr is known as the Sanctuary. This has a number of weirdly shaped rock pinnacles, the remnants of ancient landslips. One of the most famous of these is known as the Old Man of Storr.
We than returned to the Kyle Hotel and the group was very happy and completely satisfied by what they saw.
Seventh day: Kyle of Lochalsh – Eilean Donan Castle – Loch Ness – Fort William – Glencoe – Stirling and Edinburgh
Everybody took the breakfast earlier this morning because we had to drive more than 5 hours to reach our next destination for them to take their flight back to Italy.
In this trip we organised the itinerary for them to be able to “taste” everything Scotland has to offer.
This group was happy to eat local food, eager to discover the Scottish history, the facts and customs. They where disciplined, of nice company. However, two of them were not so happy and John and I would never know the reason… As other guides say, we cannot satisfy everybody….
copyright Laurence Northcote – September 2010
Written by LaureenofScotland
I’m writing my autobiography!
