Scotland - Day 4 (Isle of Skye)

Brian: We spent today visiting Isle of Skye. It was on and off rain and fog for most of the day, and the temperature changed dramatically depending on our altitude and proximity to the water, but we did have moments of clear skies and sunshine.

In the morning, we traveled north of Portree to Trotternish Ridge. The pictures below show some of the scenery.

Kim with sheep:

The Old Man of Storr (covered in fog):



Kilt Rock (a rock that looks like a kilt):

This is where we took a road over/between the high mountains in the middle of the island (mountain pass of Quiraing). It was a bit windy:

We ate lunch back in Portree, then headed to the west side of the island in the afternoon. We made a stop at a the Talisker distillary.

Kim and I did the free tasting they had. I prefered this scotch whisky to the previous whisky we had tried because it had a smokier flavor. Whisky from the Island region of Scotland tends to have a smokier flavor due to the extra use of peat when drying out the barley.

After Talisker, we made our way over to the most westerly point on the island, Neist Point. This sheep below is taking in the amazing view.

In the evening, we ate a traditional Scottish meal, featuring... Haggis! For those who don't know, Haggis is basically all of the parts of the sheep that aren't used normally in food... heart, lungs, brain, kidney, liver... you get the picture. It was actually very tasty, though I don't think we will be itching to order it every meal.

After dinner, we decided to join the locals at one of the bars in Portree to watch the big football match - Scotland vs. Lithuania. We also got to try out some of the local Isle of Skye Ales. The highlight was listening to the father next to us telling his two children (probably under 8 years old) to try not to curse too much during the match (that's Scotland for you). And for those who care, Scotland ended up winning 1 - 0, keeping their Euro Cup 2012 dreams alive!

Other notes:

• One more Braveheart inaccuracy: All of the warriors in Braveheart are wearing kilts. However, kilts weren't first worn in Scotland until around 1500, which is almost 200 years after Braveheart took place.




• We still haven't been successful in taking a decent picture of the elusive highland cow (or as we like to call them, "emo" cow. We've seen plenty of them, but we can never get the camera out in time to snap the photo. Maybe tomorrow we'll have better luck!
  



• So I've been eating black pudding almost every day (very tasty), and now Kim decides to inform me what it really is. It's blood sausage, meaning it's dried and congealed blood covering some filler, like oats. Well... it's definitely less appealing to me now, but I suppose I would still eat it (been eating it up until now without a problem).