A rough Saturday night

Christos left July 4th and 5th open with no hotel/B&B reservations. Although we had originally planned to visit Glasgow, we decided to stay in the Highlands instead so we found a place to stay using the Internet .... The MacDonald Forest Hills Hotel and Spa. As it was a short drive away, we decided to extend the drive and visited the Glengoyne Distillery north of Glasgow before arriving at the hotel around 4pm. We walked into a scene of chaos as there was a wedding going on at the hotel and things went downhill from there. Neither the phone nor the TV worked in the room which was frustrating as we had hoped to watch a bit of TV and relax (Lisa loves the show "Come Dine With Me") and the more upmarket restaurant was closed (booked for the wedding) which meant we had dinner at the hotel bistro instead which served very mediocre fare.

When we got back to our room at 10:30pm, the din from the wedding's live band kept going until midnight and then one of the guests in the room adjacent to ours left the fan on in the bathroom in their room (we believe he passed out) creating a dull roar in ours. With no phone to call down to reception, we threw on some clothes and arranged for management to talk to the guests next door. Finally by 1am we had peace and quiet but we were certainly not in good moods after the evening. We had planned on spending two days at the place but cancelled our second night. The bright side was the hotel staff was attentive (they had a guy come in to look at the TV and phone soon after we notified them) but to no avail (the phone and TV remained offline during our stay) and the manager ended up refunding our stay! So we left the next morning feeling tired but in decent spirits as we felt the hotel management had done the right thing.

The next day we drove to Falkirk with stops at the ruins of Inchmahome Priory and Doune castle. Inchmahome is on an island in Lake Menteith and one takes a quick boat ride out to visit the ruins in their quiet, peaceful setting. At one point, it was a place of refuge for a very young Mary Queen of Scots. On our way back from the priory, we saw a beautiful heron emerge from the reeds and fly by; quite a majestic sight!





Only a short drive away from Inchamohome is the excellent site of Doune castle.

While not the largest of fortified dwellings, it's state of preservation is stellar to such a degree that it has been used for not one, not two but three well known programmes; Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, Outlander and Game of Thrones! The tour includes an audio guide narrated by Terry Jones with quite a bit of humour.  The castle is pretty much in perfect condition and on the tour one visits the Great Hall, the Kitchens (including the Servery with a precursor to the "pass" in modern restaurants), the Lesser Hall, the Duke's Chamber, the Duchess' chamber etc etc!

Really an excellent castle to visit for any medievalists! The image to the left is the window for the scene goes as such:

Father: One day lad, all this will be yours!

Son: What the curtains?

We then drove on to the B&B we had found for our night's rest and popped by a local pub for a dinner including curry, a food the Scots love!