Saturday June 12th, 2004

Slept like a LOG. It felt so good!! Breakfast at 8:00am ... cooked to order and served in an elegant setting. There are only 2 rooms at this B&B and the other couple are eating later. Our hostess is very friendly and talks us to death. I felt bad letting her wait on us hand and foot ... but it also felt good!!

Taxi came at 8:50 to take us to the Castle where we will catch the bus tour. The bus ends up being pretty big but Tom and I end up behind the driver and our seats are really cramped ... especially mine. The driver is a riot and keeps a running monolouge through the entire trip. It is an all day trip with our first stop at Loch Lomond where we catch a boat tour of the Loch. The area is beautiful and the Loch is huge. Many castles on it have been converted to resorts and even a hostile! It felt great to be out on the water. We then stopped in a small town for lunch and then it was off to Stirling Castle. We didn't actually go through the castle ... Tom and I just wandered through the shops and enjoyed the sun and the breeze and the view of the Tussocks. Sometime during this trip Michael stopped the bus so we could all meet Hamish. Hamish is a large shaggy Bull with big long horns and he and Michael seem to have a wonderful friendship. Michael bought some fruit to feed him and whenever Hamish heard Michael's voice, there he went. It was pretty cool to watch.

We returned to Edinburgh at about 6:30 PM and went back to our B&B's to clean up a bit. Our hostess had recommended a few Indian Restaurants nearby so we chose to walk to one of those. The food was even better than the meal we had in Glasgow and the food even more plentiful ... but the bill was half, for some reason. We then wandered all around the Holy Corner area looking for a pub but there wasn't one to be found. So with tears in our eyes we retired to our respective B&B's for the night. Heavy sigh.