Overnight in Inverness Scotland

“Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley 

Our nine days in the Scottish highlands began with a two hour drive to Bristol and a short flight to Inverness. As a Western Australian, used to long distance flights to get anywhere at all, it is such a pleasure to be able to fly practically the length of Britain in under two hours.

Inverness was chosen as a stopover between our world wind visit to the Isle of Skye and our week in Morayshire.

 

Getting from the airport to Inverness couldn’t have been easier, with a bus stop right across from the terminal and a bus every half hour.  I can’t tell you anything about the journey on the bus as we were well entertained by an eight year old boy keen on making our acquaintance. Born into a military family he told us all about his life in Northern Ireland, Germany and now Wiltshire. Before we knew it we had arrived at the bus station and we said our farewells.

Luckily an English couple we met at the airport bus station were staying at the same hotel as us and we all walked together following instructions on the gent’s phone.

 

It has become apparent to us on our travels that just as a sunny day make adds a rosy hue, a rainy day clouds your opinion of a place. But I was determined that a little drizzle and a lot of road works were not going to give us a false impression of this lovely place.

Our hotel, the Premier Inn Inverness Waterfront, such a bargain at only thirty nine pounds, was absolutely terrific. Located right on the waterfront with lovely views, our family room was huge and the service was so friendly. The lovely lady at reception called Julian a wee little lad, which made us laugh.

 

Arriving at the hotel at around four o’clock I could easily have called it a night, but as big as the room was there was no way we could relax there with kids who had been travelling since early morning and a young man full of energy.

We decided on a nice cuppa in the bar downstairs followed by a walk across the bridge and up to the castle. Built in the 1830's its not a "real castle" (according to the kids) and its not even open to the public but the grounds are and are worth a visit.

We enjoyed taking in the views while Julian ran off some of his excess energy on the grass. We admired the statue of Flora McDonald, who had assisted Bonny Prince Charlie in his flight to freedom to Skye after the battle of Culloden. The kids even involved her in their game of hide and seek.

The grass banks leading down from the vantage point at the top of the hill were filled with wee little bunnies. I ran to find the kids to show them the one rabbit I had found, only to discover they had found the whole family.

It was getting really chilly and so we decided on dinner and early bed. The least said about our all you can eat buffet Chinese dinner the better, except that it had the benefit of a fabulous view of the river and was only a short walk from our hotel.

And so we have seen next to nothing of what Inverness has to offer and so cannot be relied upon to give any more of an opinion other than to say it was a terrific place to break our journey and overnight on the way to visit the wonders of the Scottish Highlands.

 A small footnote, don't be mislead from the quote, Inverness is in no way boring, it was just a wonderful place to do nothing and that was exactly what we needed.