Weekend at Nessie's: The Journey to Urquhart Castle

Happy Saturday Everyone! Wanting to venture a little further north in Scotland, we decided to take a weekend and visit the home of one of the worlds most famous, yet never before seen, mythical creatures... the Loch Ness Monster... Nessie!

I'm about to blow your minds (because mine was)! Loch ness is located in... Inverness, Inver, or Inbhir in Gaelic, means mouth in relation to a body of water. That means Inverness is the Mouth of the River Ness! Like what? I can't believe I had to look that up to figure it out. I also just leaned, literally as I was writing this, that in Pictish (an extinct Scottish language) Aber has the same meaning as Inbhir which means Aberdeen IS AT THE MOUTH OF BOTH THE RIVERS DEE AND DON. Boom. Mind blown. 🤣

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Any who, we hopped in the car and drove the 3 hours or so to our hotel in Inverness which legit looked like a castle. The Georgian-style building was so quaint and charming. It had sitting rooms, a bar, a back deck overlooking a beautiful garden, and each room had it's own name instead of room number. Our room overlooked the garden, had a beautiful four poster bed, and a modern spacious bathroom. We booked a table for dinner and had a delicious four course meal on site, prepared with ingredients from the garden. It was truly a delight. If you're ever in the area, check them out: Loch Ness Country House Hotel

We got up early the next morning to make our queue time to tour the famed Urquhart castle. Built somewhere between the 13th and 16th centuries, Urquhart is set on the edge of the Loch Ness with picturesque 180 degree water views.

Now in ruins, the castle would have been one of the largest in all of Scotland by area encompassing a massive 150 foot by 500 foot stretch of land. The northern area of the keep contains Grant Tower (Pictured above), the tallest part that has survived many years of weathered decay. The missing area you see above is believed to have collapsed in the 18th century during a severe storm.

Just look at this view... *Chefs Kiss*

There's a lot of history around Urquhart Castle, I won't go in depth for you but here's a snippet from the Wikipedia page:

Founded in the 13th century, Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century. It was subsequently held as a royal castle, and was raided on several occasions by the MacDonald Earls of Ross. The castle was granted to the Clan Grant in 1509, though conflict with the MacDonalds continued. Despite a series of further raids the castle was strengthened, only to be largely abandoned by the middle of the 17th century. Urquhart was partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent its use by Jacobite forces, and subsequently decayed.

Urquhart is one of Scotland's most visited castles attracting over 500,000 visitors annually and was another inspiration locale for the Disney film Brave, along with Dunnottar Castle.

The views around Urquhart are so serene and beautiful. It was a nice sunny day and tons of people were out boating and enjoying the sunshine. We had a chance to head down to the shoreline to put our feet in the water and it was so crisp, cold and clear. Sadly, Nessie didn't make an appearance, I was really looking forward to seeing her.

Just a few minutes from the castle lies the town of Drumnadrochit (No idea how to say that one), a little village dedicated to all things Nessie with their very own Loch Ness Monster exhibition and Loch Ness museum. It's very whimsical and I'm sure would be super fun for kinds.

After touring the castle we headed in to town and had lunch before heading to Inverness to see the botanical gardens. Not going to lie, it was totally underwhelming. It was pretty but Dunvegan on Skye had a better display. If you want to see the Botanical Garden check out to album in our gallery.

It was a really great little weekend getaway but it was good to get home. I had a lot to do to get our flat ready because we are having my wonderful Mother-In-Law coming to visit! We have lots planned and fun posts coming up! As always, click on any of the images below to be taken to the full album and check out our gallery page to see all of our great travel photos!