Rosslyn Chapel & Inverary (say it fast, roll the "r"s)

By Monday we were ready to get out of the city.

Car

After spending over an hour in "queue", we were finally in our home for the next 1 1/2 weeks: a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2, complete with steering wheel on the right side of the car and manual transmission. Woo hoo!

Rosslyn Chapel

We wanted to head west, but our friend Shane had told us about this amazing chapel just south of Edinburgh called Rosslyn Chapel - so we just had to check it out. This one was established in 1446 and is also still an active place of worship. We spent several hours, wandering in and around the chapel and grounds. The carving is amazing, and flowers all around it were beautiful!

But, it was time to head west. We barreled through Glasgow and up along the shores of Loch Lamond before landing in...

Inverary

Inverary was one of our favorite places. It's a small town at the top of the Kintyre peninsula. Turns out there's a beautiful, famous castle there (where Downton Abby was filmed - huh!), but down on the peninsula was a whisky distillery we really wanted to visit. One of the best parts was the bed & breakfast - The Claonairigh House (pronounced "cloon-er-ee"). We were met with tea, served grilled grapefruit and homemade rolls in the morning, and really had a great time talking with the proprieter Fiona.

The Springbank distillery tour was really fun and interesting - and a great place for a first tour. For one thing, they let us take photos! For another, it's the only distillery in Scotland that does the entire process, from malting the barley on, right on site. Our tour guide was... well, listen for yourself and you'll see how lovely:

Another highlight of our time here almost didn't happen - we debated about stopping by Inverary Castle, and ended up going for it as we were heading out. It was beautiful and interesting - a great place to wander about. Once again, they allowed photos, which not all castles do.

So... without further ado... click here for photos of our time in Rosslyn, Cambeltown, and Inverary. Next stop: Ballachulish!