We woke up this morning to discover blue sky in Scotland! After 13 days in the U.K., can you tell we get really excited about blue sky?? We had no other plans and have a rental car for Mark to drive on the left, so we hopped in the car and drove 33 miles to Fort William to check out the scenery. We saw some pheasants along the road and lots of closed B&B’s and hotels.
Loch Ness in the sun!
Fort Augustus village and the canal the runs through the middle. We want to see the locks in operation but there’s not much boat traffic in December!
A view of the Highlands mountains with a bit of snow. Notice how green the grass is. We’re betting it never turns brown.
With a population of about 11,000, Fort William is the 2nd largest city in the Highlands. The drive was beautiful and few of the mountains have snow on the top.
Boxing Day (December 26) is a holiday in the UK – no postal service or banks open. Not many shops were open either and some of the pubs and coffee shops were actually closed when we wandered down High Street. Thank heavens Tesco was open since we need some toilet paper and cheese and crackers. The little store in Fort Augustus didn’t have toilet paper this morning!
BBC had an article about people not shopping at the Boxing Day Sales today. Since not many stores are open, what do they expect?? Clearly, after-Christmas sales are not a big deal here, at least on the 26th. Maybe tomorrow!