Holly and I woke up at the crack of dawn, booked it out to Starbucks than waited for our tour bus. We were taking a tour of the West Highlands, Lochs, and Castles.

This tour was through a company called Rabbies. We get on our bus to find ourselves with maybe 10 other people and Shelby. Shelby Shelby Shelby.

Best. Tour. Guide. Ever.

She was wonderful. I’ve never seen anyone speak more passionately and honestly about their home. She said she only has one day to make us fall in love with her beautiful country. She was hilarious and brilliant.

She knows so much about Scottish history. She told us about how when the English came–

I’m gonna digress for a minute. There seems to be a lot of tension when it comes to the English. So many counties, including our own, don’t like the English. It just seem to be a common trend in Irelad and now Scotland. Even though they say “no hard feelings. It’s the 21 century” they really still crack jokes and aren’t fans. I think it’s funny. America is nosey and puts our nose in everyone’s business to help. At least we don’t try to take over and make you our property, eh?

Anyways, English come into Scotland with their Protestant ways. They cause clans to turn on clans and kick them off their land. Because of this, many Scottish people fled the country, moving to our new land. This is why there is such a huge population of Scottish blood in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and randomly South Africa.

She asked if anyone on the bus had

Scottish blood and I raised my hand. She saluted me and said “welcome home.”

You could definitely see the difference between the highlands and the lowlands. Cattle were everywhere and the mountains came out of nowhere filled with trees, flowers and just green. It was beautiful. We stopped at a few castles and lochs. For anyone who cares a loch is a lake. Loch Ness is the most famous

Loch because of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster.

We learned loads about castles. Many people still live in them. If a family can no longer afford a castle, but willingly open it to the public (whether it’s a fee entrance or free) Scotland will maintain it. They want to preserve as much history as possible. I thought that was way cool.

By the way, Scotland has the cutest cattle in the world. I wish they all looked this way!!!

Through this entire tour we got so much history of Scotland and how she fought to get her independence back. I would tell you the awesome things she told us but it is so much history and all intertwined and would take forever to tell.

We learned all about Mary Queen of Scots. About becoming queen so young, being sent to France, Queen of two lands, having her husband killed, her son not caring if she got killed. It was fascinating.

We also learned all about Scotland’s true Braveheart is Robert the Bruce, not William Wallace like Hollywood had depicted. That was a great piece of history. Even drove past the battlefield. Like it was no big deal!

I can’t even explain how great this tour and history was!! She even played music. Each song was relevant to what we were talking about or where we were. It was fantastic. I knew one song! Haha! Thank you Made of Honor.

We stopped at Kilchurn Castle which is on Loch Awe in Glen Orchy. It’s now a ruin castle that was built in 1449 I think. This was owned by a man who belonged to the Campbell clan. I will talk more about that clan later. It was a beautiful.

So many pictures. It was beautiful! I loved it. From there we went to this cute small town for lunch. In this town was a castle that was used for a Christmas special in Downton Abbey, which I love!!

The family was home and still lived there so no exploring took place. It wasn’t worth the money for a few rooms.

This castle was also owned by a man of the Campbell clan. This clan was a clan that turned on another clan after being bribed by the English. In Scotland there’s a well known overall gentlemans agreement, you could call it. If the weather is shitty, you will take a person in, friend or enemy. The weather is so unpredictable that this was widely followed and recognized in Scotland. So enemies would be camped out 500 feet from each other or in someone’s home and battle would be put on hold for a better day. I think that’s very honorable.

This clan though took advantage of that and killed much of another clan. The clan was about 300 big, the one that was killed. They had refused to sign a allegiance to the English so the English wanted to prove how powerful they were. No one knows if they chose that clan because the chief signed a day late or because they were small with only 300. Either way, the Campbell clan signed allegiance to the English and then attacked this clan in their sleep. After spending 13 days being taken care of by them. Horrible!

A breaking of this understanding happened again with Robert the Bruce. The final battle, Scotland was out numbered. They were forced into war because Robert the Bruce’s brother told the English to give back the last castle that Scotland had to take back for victory or they would bring hell upon the castle and take it by force. Well the English decided to send over a thousand soldiers. Robert the Bruce thought his brother was an idiot but he had no choice but to fight.

The Scots knew they were out numbered. No matter how strong you are or weapons, numbers matter. Robert the Bruce was riding around on a small pony on the eve of battle, trying to give the best pep talk to his men. As I said before, your enemy could be camped 500 feet from you. An English soldier was practicing his jousting on his horse and looked over to see the King of Scotland without armor or weapons so close. He charged, his joust aimed at Robert the Bruce. Robert the Bruce saw him out of the corner of his eye and waited until the last moment. He had his horse side step having the man ride past him and then he pushed up so hard and high and pulled out his favorite weapon that no one could see and bashed his head in half.

Scotland won the war the next morning.

They say the soldiers fought like lions, and numbers meant nothing. Scotland had her freedom.

It was such an epic story I thought I was watching a movie. The detail, I could see it all. Shelby was a great story teller!

Our last stop was at Loch Lomond where I put my feet in the water- check! We stopped at sterling castle’s base and then headed back.

Once back Holly and I grabbed grub and passed out! It was a long day, but beautiful!