Start of cruise and Inverness

After travelling from Bruges to Amsterdam On Sunday we boarded Celebrity Eclipse ready to set sail at 6.00 pm. Paul wanted to stay on our balcony until we left the harbour. After 1.5 hours, we gave up and went to the show and then dinner at 8 pm. Then we realised the ship had stopped. We were still in the river and in a loch. Lucky we didn’t stay on the balcony – would have totally missed dinner!

Monday was a sea day with 2 games of bridge.

On Tuesday we docked at Invergordon at the Port of Cromarty Firth. This is a very deep, natural harbour formed by glacial activity in the last ice age.

We had already booked the ship’s tour to Inverness, which is a 45 minute drive from Invergordon. Inverness is the capital of the Highlands.

We had an informative local guide on the bus trip both directions

Oil is the main industry of the area and there are many rigs in sight. They are brought to this harbour for repair and for decommissioning when they have served their purpose and are no longer useful.

Eighty percent of the cropping is barley which is divided into three grades. Top grade for whiskey, second grade for human food, and third grade for cattle food.

To be classed as a whiskey the brew must be in the barrel for at least 3 years and one day. Most are barrelled for up to 9 years. Whiskey is Scotland’s largest export industry.

Some industrious locals have started making gin flavoured by the local flowers and this does not need to be barrelled so the profit is immediate.

The Romans always called Scotland Caledonia so the local football(soccer) team is called Inverness Caledonian Thistles.

One in town the tour buses all have to drop their passengers in the one location next to St Andrews Church. It is about a 3 block walk to the High Street where all the shops are. We caught a drizzly day but no heavy rain.

We did a few souvenir shops and I bought a Ferguson magnet (my mum was a Ferguson). We just enjoyed wandering around.

 

We were pleased to see the McDonald clan so prominently positioned in the centre of town!

We tried a local coffee shop called So Coco – Wow – what a chocolate overload. We enjoyed churros with milk chocolate and that e was enough for me. Other people had the most amazing chocolate cakes, desserts etc. They also sold beautiful salads etc. It was packed all morning which says a lots as the locals were all in there.

 

Later we ventured into the Caledonian Pub for Paul to try the local brew. He was very disappointed as his worst nightmare came true – warm beer! I rarely see Paul buy a beer and leave it!

Then we wandered down to another pub we had seen as we drove into town. It had much more atmosphere and the barmaids were very friendly.  We had a spot of lunch and a ‘colder’ beer.

We had no idea there was actually an industry for making gluten free beers. We say this sign and did some research and it is huge!

We wandered back to the bus stop at 2pm and returned to the Celebrity Eclipse.