What do these three things have in common?  Well nothing actually except that they are the sights I saw today.  The day started off with a tour of the Ben Nevis Distillery where I learned how whiskey was made.  Not being a whiskey drinker, I had no idea what a huge export it is for Scotland.  But I now know the difference between a single malt and a blended whiskey.  A high peat and a low peat roasted barley.  And that whiskey in Gaelic means “the water of life”.  Gosh, and here I was thinking “water” was the water of life.  You learn something new every day.

After the tour, I headed down the way for a ride up a cable car to Great Britain’s highest peak; Ben Nevis that rises to an impressive 4,410 feet.  At the top, you can see miles of breathtaking scenery.  The steep-side valleys here with their thundering waterfalls also served as a backdrop to the movies Highlander, Rob Roy and Braveheart.

For me, a trip to Scotland would not be complete without a stop at Glenfinnan., a little village steeped in Jacobite history.  It was here that Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Royal Standard and rallied the Highland clans to support his cause to regain the British throne.  The site is commemorated by a column topped with a statue of a kilted highlander.  I had to climb a very narrow, winding stone staircase in order to take a close up picture of the Highlander at the top. 

Then, on the opposite side of the visitor’s center was another more modern tourist attraction; the Jacobite Steam train viaduct used in the Harry Potter films.  I even caught a sight of the Jacobite Express (otherwise known as the Hogwarts Express) coming down the track.