Monday started out nice and sunny. Because of that we’d decided to go on foot to the bus station, instead of taking a cab. We walked to the bus station, and got there with plenty of time to spare, unlike the bus. Even though the bus arrived after it was supposed to depart we had a delay of only 8 minutes. It took us only 30 minutes to make it to Drumnadrochit.
The sky in Drumnadrochit was very dark-clouded the whole day there, but no rain fell. Since we arrived several hours before check-in time we dropped off our suitcases at the reception of the Loch Ness Lodge Hotel. We then went to the Loch Ness Monster Visitor Centre, and booked a cruise on Loch Ness. Our tour guide was Mr. George Edwards.
By the way, the correct term for Nessie is Each Uisge (some times misspelled as Eioch Uisge) which means ‘Water Horse‘ in plain English, or Uilebheist (which simple means ‘monster’).
After an hour of cruising the loch and getting a very interesting & entertaining audio tour by Mr. Edwards we had not seen any sign of Nessie, but we had seen plenty of Swedish sail boats. After the cruise we walked over to Cobbs Restaurant and Bakehouse for lunch. I had a perfect tuna sandwich, which I washed down with a pint of Tennent’s Velvet beer, & a Gaelic coffee. This place had one of the friendliest waiters I’ve met during the whole trip! (99% of the people we’ve met there were very friendly, but there are always people who are even more friendly than this average, of course…)
After this lunch we checked out the remainder of the souvenir shops in Drumnadrochit. Around 3pm we returned to the Lodge Hotel to check in to our room. Shortly afterwards we went out again and had a drink at the Glen cafe. We then went back to the room for a small rest & some post card writing. At 7pm we had dinner.
What to say about the dinner at the Lodge Hotel…? Hmm… It started after ordering: We’d ordered our main courses, and a bottle of wine. The food arrived swift, but the wine…? More than half an hour later still no sign of it… I’d gotten tired of waiting, so I decided to go to the bar (we had no luck in flagging down a waitress from our seats at the table). At the bar, the young man in the corner signaled that he/someone would be with me soon. Well, that never happened, and it took almost 5 minutes until a young waitress in black & white (the same one who had taken our dinner order!) asked me what she could help me with. When I mentioned the wine she told me her colleague dealt with that. That colleague then came shortly with our long-awaited wine and apologies. By then my lamb had gotten quite cold from when I was waiting at the bar attempting to inquire about the wine…). After the main course we had a very nice dessert ( I had Bread Pudding). When settling the bill we were informed the desserts were on the house because of the wine incident. A nice gesture, but not enough for me to not to mention the ‘service level’… 😉
After dinner we spent until after 10pm reading in the lounge.