As it's many years since I last visited Scotland and I found some cheap flights from East Mids I thought we'd give it a go, the weather wasn't brilliant but we had a good time.

We landed a few minutes ahead of schedule and had a short wait for the taxi which had been pre booked online ( I can recommend Inverness Taxis) at a cost of £14. I'd booked a twin room in Bazpackers hostel and the location of the hostel was excellent being just a short walk to the city centre and with a good pub just next door. It's hard to imagine that there could be a better view of Inverness than from our room (room 3) being almost on a level with the castle whilst also looking over the river to the Cathedral. It was gone 9pm when we arrived so it was almost immediately down to town for a few drinks calling in several bars that had live music and also a Wetherspoons for a quieter drink. As we returned to the hostel it poured it down and we got soaked.

Woke up about 7am next morning so went for a walk around the city centre, it was windy and cold and uninviting so returned to the hostel for a warming coffee in front of the fire, hoping that when the tourist info office opened at 10 it would give us some ideas what to do for the day. Once it opened we picked up some car hire leaflets and made a few phone calls, eventually managing to hire a mini cooper which was fun to drive though a hoist to get me out of it would have been usefull. Spent the rest of the day driving around Loch Ness and down to Fort William enjoying the scenery and wanted to take the cable car at the foot of Ben Nevis but missed closing time by 3 minutes. Arriving back at Inverness liquid refreshment was needed so we called into the pub next to the hostel (Castle Inn ?) and despite the food looking good I was dragged away and taken to some Pizza place to eat, though following that a good night was had in Hootanannys (spelling ?).

Next morning we drove to Nairn and needing breakfast we found Nairn Cafe (or Cafe Nairn depending on which sign you see) which did great breakfasts at reasonable prices. The beach at Nairn is long and sandy and clean with (at the end we parked at) a childrens playground, indoor swimming pool, crazy golf etc. and many rockpools. We walked along the beach further than we thought and couldn't quite remember where the car was parked when we returned.

It was time to head back to the airport so we called into Nairn cafe to get sandwhiches to take with us as we didn't know what facilities there would be at the airport, good job we did as once passed security there was just the one snack bar dealing with several hundred passengers.

andy.