Weekend Getaways near Culross

Deep in the Scottish Highlands, along a cold mountain stream lies a beautiful little town. A town surrounded by misty mountains, where an imposing castle stands tall overlooking houses that look like tiny matchboxes stacked to perfection. A town where people work during the day and spend the evenings angling in the Ness river which flows right through it. A town consisting of beautiful little cafes, hauntingly pretty alleys and a lush green forested area. Yes I am taking about the jewel in the crown of the Scottish Highlands – InvernessLocated in the far north of the United Kingdom, this place is one where the term “Heaven on Earth” might just stand true and I feel blessed that I have been able to spend a couple of days in this “paradise”In the paragraphs below I will attempt to describe this beauty as much as I can and although what the eyes saw might be tough to replicate in words, I will let my pictures do the talking.

#CoffeewithTripotoComing back with a blog after an eternity seems like a task, rather it actually is one. I had to spend hours thinking about a perfect start for this beautiful piece. No, I am not being biased towards my writing that too prior to completing it rather I am referring to it as beautiful, for it involves a story of travelling through a beautiful place that also hosts a house I intend to have as my retirement home.Nestled amidst the ‘Scottish Highlands’ lies a place I explored this turn, which goes by the name ‘Inverness’.The first question that popped in my head as soon as I stepped in ‘Inverness’ was, what should I refer the place as? Hamlet? Well the place has a lot of churches, dictionary says I can’t use the word in that case.City? Really? But, I missed the normal hustle and bustle here, may be Town? I guess yes, it fits.So there I was visiting this town located north in Scotland almost opening out to the Atlantic Ocean. I was travelling as part of a group that had three people, other two being two of my favourite people on earth.We took a train from Edinburgh to reach this town, hostel was pre booked and was centrally located.

Whilst all other things.. small happinesses around!

Day 1: Inverness Castle - Located in the centre of the town the castle occupies a comfortable position on a hill top. I say comfortable, for the view it offered to its inhabitants was good enough to gauge the status of the entire town, and this I know because it didn’t disappoint us who were mere visitors to the place. The view this place offers can totally serve as the setting for a writers new story or a directors new project.Mesmerised we stood there for a while watching the water flow and the seagulls play. I could only attempt at capturing what my eyes saw, in the form of pictures put below. Yes I am cheating, I am referring you to the pictures since I am no poet nor a writer and hence not adept at describing the beauty and tranquility of the place well enough that would make me feel I did justice to it. See yourself and decide.

Days 12 to 14There are two ways to look at my stay in Inverness. One way is to focus on the negativity that permeates this entire town and its people, to the extent that as a solo traveller I began getting worried about my safety even while having a sip of coffee during the day. The other way is to remember that in this same town are people who stood up to those acting weird and helped me out. So, in many ways, Inverness proved to be a metaphor for life in Britain, for tourists, travellers and ‘immigrants’. Now, what remains to be seen is which side will reach the so-called ‘critical mass’ and tip the balance for or against bigotry masquerading as nationalism and paranoia and violent opportunism posing as tribalism and ‘closed border’ policies.

INVERNESSGetting there : There are buses going to Inverness everyday from the main station of Glasgow to InvernessWhere to stay : Inverness Tourist Hostel. Costed roughly £12 per night.Things to do : Inverness is legit the star location of Scotland. Every goddamn story about Scottish highlands to exotic locations, everything is on Inverness. And, yeah you can go monster searching at Lochness. Cool no?

We reach Inverness in Scotland at 6am in the morning and our first priority was to look for a B&B (Bed & Breakfast) as we had decided to stay overnight in Inverness. B&B is basically a house were you get a room to stay overnight with breakfast. The charges may range between 30-50 Pounds depending on the facilities available; bargaining is not really a possibility as these places go full round the year. After checking out some 5-6 places we settled for a place very close to the train station as we had a train next day morning at 7.30 am to Glasgow. The place we stayed was owned by a lady, who had a huge dog;). She offered us a nice cozy room for 50 pounds a night. The overnight train journey was very relaxing and we had a good sleep to, so we were all fresh and ready for our day ahead in Inverness. The lady of the house offered us our morning breakfast; we had a nice hot water bath and were out to explore the city by 9 am.Inverness is a city in northern Scotland and it's the northern most city in United Kingdom. It was a beautiful day and again we decided to walk around the city instead of taking the bus tour. Our first stop was a castle just 5 mins away from our B&B, it was a short uphill climb to the castle and we could see the cityscape from here. After a small photo shoot around the castle, we walked to the main Inverness city. The city is very well planned around the river Lochness. We walk around the main city market, doing a lot of window shopping and a little bit of grocery shopping i.e. for water, beer, chips & chocolates.

Bref notre nouvelle voiture nous attends à Iverness donc on trace là bas doucement... comme d'hab histoire de profiter des highlands et des paysages. On récupère notre voiture on mange on visite un peu et hop go to ullapool

A water-colour painting coming alive!