TUESDAY   
INVERNESS  TO  DOUNE

There seemed to be road work being done on a lot of roads. So at those places they would have one lane of a two lane road closed and alternating traffic on the one open lane. It happened a lot.
I have been on four distillery tours and I don't like whiskey (or whisky as they would spell it over there).
The reason they have a couple of wooden vats (or whatever they are really called) is that they look better for tourists.
For some reason these things make me think of massive breast pumps.
The used barrels are sent to the U.S. where they are used by Jack Daniels.
The distillery is located at the foot of the mountains.
At the end of the tour was a tasting of a small sample of single malt. Yikes! I don't know why people drink this stuff. Even the best whisky I've ever tasted isn't that great.
A big red hairy bull
And now for something completely different. We have reached the first Monty Python portion or our trip. If you have seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you may recognize Castle Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh.
The drive south from Fort William took us through some rather rugged Scottish landscape.
There were many pull-off spots along the roads. I'm sure they are probably meant more for large slow vehicles to stop and let traffic pass, but they were good for stopping and taking pictures.
It probably would have looked better with a clear sky and sunshine, but the cloudy and rainy atmosphere put it in a certain appropriately Scottish mood.
More Python. Well, and Scottish history too. This is Doune Castle. Just park your giant wooden rabbit at the castle gate and come on in.
The castle dates to the 14th century and possesses a large courtyard. It is also where the wedding party scene was filmed.
John Cleese's Sir Gallahad killing the guards at the top of the stairs.
Imagine John Cleese as a strangly French soldier standing on this wall shouting insults at King Arthur and his knights (k-nnnnniggits) below or hurling a cow down at them. Now I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Run away! Run away!
I doubt the Pythons used it, but this was a latrine. It's a hole in the upper floor. I hope there was at least a bucket or something down below and that there wasn't a grate over it back then.
The Knights of the Round Table song in Camelot was filmed in here. I couldn't get the song out of my head while I was there. It's a busy life in Camelot. I have to push the pram a lot.
The kitchen and servery of Doune Castle served as Castle Anthrax where Zoot and the other eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between 16 and 19 1/2, were cut off in the castle with no one to protect them. It was a lonely life, with little to do but bathing, dressing, undressing, and knitting exciting underwear.
This was the room where the King of Swamp Castle was trying to convince his reluctant son, Prince Herbert, to marry his bride-to-be because she was beautiful, rich and had huge...tracts of land. The window at the lower right was where Herbert was trying to escape.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
A man standing in the River Teith fishing. I can't really expand on that.

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