Invergordon and Inverness, Scotland

Yesterday was a relaxing day at sea. (Actually all of these cruise days
are relaxing.) The only news of any import was the first bingo winnings
of the Eagans. The prize for that game was $141 but unfortunately there
were two additional winners for that game so we went away with $47.

This morning we are in Invergordon, Scotland and it looks to be a very
nice day. When we pulled in the harbor you could hardly see anything
with the fog. As the early morning (8:00 AM) goes on it is clearing
up. In a few minutes we will get a bus and are going to spend the day
in the city of Inverness. Will continue this when we continue.

And now we are back after visiting Inverness. It is about a 45 minute
bus ride from the port of Invergordon. We were under the impression
that there was a "hop-on hop-off" bus in the downtown portion of
Inverness. We stopped at the tourist office and asked where we could
get the "hop-on hop-off" bus and the girl informed us that they did away
with it. We had used the "hop-on hop-off" buses in Copenhagen, Rome,
Paris and a number of European cities and have found a convenient way to
see a number of the sites when you have a limited time to see them.

Armed with a map of the downtown area we took off on foot. Climbed up
to the top of the hill to see Inverness Castle that looks out over the
city and visited the Town House (called Town Hall most places), the
Cathedral and the Victorian Marketplace. The River Ness goes through
the center of the city and the river is crossed by an number of
convenient pedestrian bridges and small park-like areas along the
river. Eastgate, a continuous of the High Street, is closed off to
motorists and stalls a located in the middle of the street. It being
Saturday and the weather was very nice, a large number of people were
out and about.

We are back at the ship and will be leaving for Edinburgh at about 6:00 PM.