May 16th, 2016

May 16th, 2016

On our second day in Fort William, we got up fairly early and headed to the train station - we had plans that were basically our main reason for coming up to Fort William... taking a ride on the Jacobite train (otherwise known as the Hogwarts Express)!  It's an old fashioned train that goes from Fort William to Mallaig, and then comes back after a few hours.  It's a very scenic ride, and the train itself is pretty cool, too.

When I was studying abroad, I had come up to Fort William with my friends so that we could take the Hogwarts Express, and my mom had wanted to do it as soon as she heard about it.  So when I knew that we'd actually be able to come to Scotland, that was one of the first things I planned for us to do.

We even splurged and got 'first class' tickets.

People watching the Jacobite train go by.

Mallaig, Scotland

Back in Fort William

     I will say - this trip on the Jacobite train was slightly disappointing, especially compared to my last trip in 2011.  That's not to say that it wasn't enjoyable, and beautiful, because it definitely was.  However, when we bought our tickets, we decided to book the table for 2 instead of the table for 4 - no specific reason except that there are only two of us and we figured we'd definitely get the window seat if there were only two seats.  But the tables for two are ONLY on the right side of the train - and the best views are only visible out of the left side of the train.  When we got on board and realized this, I didn't think it was that big of a deal at first, because the last time I was there, I got my best pictures by going into the inbetween area (where there are no seats) and taking pictures out of the window, so I thought I would do the same thing this time.  But unfortunately, the people who were across from us in the table for four, weren't quite happy enough with their view out of the window, and a couple of them decided to camp out at the other window.  I don't necessarily blame them, because I would want to get great pictures too, but at the same time, I wish they would have just taken turns taking pictures out of their window.  It was just disappointing.  I think I only got a couple of pictures on the train ride, and we couldn't even see out of the window when it was time to go over the Glenfinnan Viaduct.  And then to top it all off, I'm 90% sure that last time, once the train got to Mallaig, they turned the train around so that the other side got the good view on the way back, and they didn't do that this time.  So both rides, we got not so great views.  Like I said, disappointing, but what can you do.  I'm definitely thankful that I was able to go on this trip, and to go on the Hogwarts Express with my mom like she always wanted, but I love taking travel photos, and I would have loved to have gotten a few from this trip.

Even still, I would highly recommend going on the Jacobite Express - it was fantastic.  The next time I'm able to go to Scotland, if we end up in that area, I would want to find a scenic spot to watch the train go by - we saw quite a few people that were doing that, and I'm sure they got amazing pictures too.

We finally got back to Fort William after a looooong day.  We were exhausted, so we got some dinner, checked out a few souvenir shops that were actually open, and then headed back to our B&B for the night (and yes, had to climb up that awful hill again).

May 15th, 2016

May 15th, 2016


We started off the first full day of our trip by going to a restaurant that had gluten free options, Bill's Restaurant.  It was only a few minutes walk from our hotel.  By the way, we loved this restaurant!  The overall look of the restaurant was really cool, the food was great, and they had gluten free stuff, too.

                                                                                                My mom

The inside of Bill's

View of the street from inside Bill's Restaurant

Eggs Benedict - my mom loved this!

After breakfast, we spent a few hours walking around the city centre and doing some shopping.  I showed my mom some of the places that I used to go to.  Then, it was time for us to check out of the hotel and head to our next destination.  We went to the train station, and hopped on the train heading to Fort William, Scotland.  The train ride took a few hours but the scenery was beautiful!

Finally, we arrived in Fort William, and headed to our next hotel.  This time, we were staying in a B&B - St Andrews Guest House in Fort William

Funny story about this B&B... we walked from the train station and apparently we didn't see the entrance that we were supposed to use, so we dragged our suitcases up the stairs (the ones that you can kind of see in the picture above). It was incredibly difficult, and probably took about 10 minutes for the both of us to get our bags up the stairs (which were made of gravel and wood).  And of course one we got to the top, we saw that the people inside could see us struggling with our bags.  And then later on, we realized that if we had come from the other direction, we would have seen that there is a driveway that is MUCH easier to get up.  Oops.

Our room - as you can probably tell, as soon as we got into the room, we both flopped down on the beds, exhausted.

The window in our room, and the view outside.

An old chest, and the stairs inside the B&B

The entrance to the B&B

We then decided to check out Fort William, and went to the High Street.  Unfortunately, for as much planning as I did prior to the trip, I never considered the fact that we would be arriving in Fort William (a pretty small town) on a Sunday, and so the majority of the shops would be closed.  We found one small souvenir shop that was open, and picked up a couple of souvenirs.  We had dinner at The Grog & Gruel.  Then we headed back to the B&B for the night - which involved climbing up a huge hill.  

The hill that we had to climb to get back to the B&B - the pictures seriously do not do it justice.

Mailing some postcards

High street on a Sunday afternoon

Peekaboo!