Fort William (Scotland)

~~*~~ INTRODUCTION ~~*~~

Fort William - a delightful place to visit - before I went there 2 summers ago I assumed it was just a fort and not a whole new wonderful holiday experience! Hmm how wrong could I have been? The place where both Rob Roy and Braveheart were filmed, it's definitely a place to see if you believe in exploring the UK's finest places. I'm not an expert at writing travel reviews so please bear with me if this review isn't laid out exactly as you'd expect it to be.

~~*~~ WHERE AND WHAT IS IT? ~~*~~

Well as it's in the "United Kingdom Experience" I'm hoping everyone knows that it's here in the UK but it's right up there in the West Highlands of Scotland.

As the crow flies (or car drives…) it's roughly 500 miles from my home in West London to Fort William, which equates to 8½ hours driving if you average 70mph and don't stop on the way. For anyone who cares we went via the M40, M6, A74, M74, M73, M8 and A82. My husband and I left on a Sunday morning at around 9 a.m. as we'd been to a friend's 30th birthday party the night before and our intended 7 a.m. start got a bit delayed… We stopped a couple of times along the way for a bite to eat and to stretch our legs. I took a few pictures en route to Scotland as I found the scenery breath-taking. As we were taking turns driving, obviously, I only took pictures when HE was driving LOL… Makes sense eh? We arrived at our B&B eventually at about 7pm, 11 hours after we'd left London.

Fort William is a town at the foot of Ben Nevis by the shore of Loch Linnhe, which is a deep sea loch. With a population of around 12,000 people Fort William offers most necessary services for residents and visitors alike. And believe me, visitors are treated like royalty in this wonderful part of Scotland. Nearby Glen Nevis forms the valley at the eastern flank of Ben Nevis.

~~*~~ WHERE WE WENT ~~*~~

Hubby (my then fiancé) had booked us in for 4 nights at a lovely little B&B in between Banavie and Corpach in Fort William which was pretty as a picture and arriving here I really felt that I was well and truly away from the hustle and bustle of London that I am so used to. Normally I'm a proper "townie" I like to have all my conveniences such as shops, restaurants, bars, etc within walking distance but it was like being in a parallel universe for me almost and I must say I was pleasantly surprised at myself for not freaking out at the vast amount of "greenery" around me. I truly apologise for not being able to give the address of the B&B we stayed at, I have searched high and low for the address online and offline but can't lay my hands on it at all.

Settling into the B&B and having had a brief chat with Mary, the very nice lady who ran the place, we decided to get refreshed and venture into Fort William for an evening meal. As we were quite tired from the long journey we decided to get a takeaway rather than spend hours in a restaurant so we opted for a takeaway from a local Chinese restaurant (the name which completely escapes me). The food was very nice and we slept soundly eager to have a good night's sleep so we could start exploring this wondrous place early the next day.

After a very hearty breakfast and some lively conversation with Mary on our first day out we drove over to visit the Nevis Range, of which Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the UK and decided to take a gondola/cable car to the top as it seemed to be what everyone else there was doing. Here at the base was a café, ticket station, ski hire shop and toilet facilities. We queued briefly and got into our gondola to go up the 2150ft to the top. I'd like to mention that the gondola's are disabled user-friendly too and can carry up to 6 people quite comfortably. Not exactly one for looking down from great heights I was surprised that I thoroughly enjoyed the cable car trip, we looked out of the windows and saw youngsters mountain biking downhill at amazing speeds. I was quite concerned for their safety but they all seemed to know what they were doing. When we got to the top (which took about 15 minutes), we had a browse around the Nevisport shop before buying ourselves some soft drinks from the Snowgoose Mountain restaurant/bar and just stood there looking down and taking in the glorious views which I can only describe as spectacular. The Nevis Range also offers winter ski-ing with full facilities in the winter months. The Range is open from 10am to 5pm daily and from 9.30am to 6pm (extended to 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays) during the peak summer months of July and August.

On our 2nd day we visited the Old Inverlochy Castle Ruin in Torlundy, which has a long history, and where two noteworthy battles were fought in the 1600s. The castle was fairly deserted when we visited and for the 2 hours or so we spent there, we only saw maybe 2 or 3 small groups of people visiting. From this castle there are great views and there's a lovely photo opportunity there for all you budding David Baileys (see my pics below… LOL). We stayed here for a good few hours soaking in the atmosphere and reading about the layout of the castle in bygone days.

Glen Nevis we found quite by accident on our 3rd day at Fort William, we'd driven past the entrance half a dozen times on previous days and were quite curious by the 3rd day so we ventured in. It was a truly amazing spectacle! The further we drove in the more breath-taking we found it. We pulled over in a car park and got down to join other visitors who looked just as speechless as we did. We drove in as far as we could and as we turned around we were waved down by a young French couple who asked us for a lift back to the entrance where they'd parked their bikes. They couldn't speak English and my French is pretty rusty but we gathered that they had spent hours walking and were too exhausted to walk back to their bikes. All due respect to them for doing the walking, as hubby and I are not great walkers!

On our last day there we visited a little exhibition/museum near where we stayed called Treasures of the Earth (in Corpach) which was real fun for me as it was a museum full of geological gems. Yes sir, I had a real ball having a look at some of the gems on display there (except for a rather large and bizarre dinosaur picture on display - this was possibly there to keep children entertained whilst their mothers drooled over the lovely gems on display), and hubby couldn't stop me buying a ring and bracelet from the gift shop, try as he might!

I could go on for hours about the beautiful views we witnessed up in the West Highlands but for few of sending people to sleep, I'll just stick to listing a few more of the memorable places we saw whilst up there. The view of Loch Eil is a stunning sight to see and if you're up that way, make sure you get a look or you'll be sorry. We visited Loch Ness which was really calm and there was absolutely no sign of the Loch Ness monster, oh well…

During our stay there we ate out in the evening at The Indian Garden restaurant in Fort William High Street and Highland Star Chinese Restaurant also in the High Street, both places were very clean and welcoming and the service was above average, although we had to wait about 20 minutes to get a table at The Indian Garden. We also lunched at the Lochaber Bar in Caol which was also quite buzy but the food was excellent and service was very friendly.

Fort William High Street boasts a full range of high street shops you would expect to see anywhere else in the UK but because we were in Scotland the atmosphere seemed different to us, more laidback maybe. When I go shopping on my local high street for example you take you life in your hands with kids on skateboards and rollerskates (or should I say rollerblades) and anxious mums with double pushchairs nipping at your ankles. Here it was very relaxed and people actually smiled at you as you walked past!

~~*~~ SUMMARY ~~*~~

From my point of view Fort William is a wonderful and truly beautiful part of the UK to visit. I would love to go again - and would love to stay at the same delightful and homely bed and breakfast that we stayed at last time. It certainly knocked the "townie" out of me for the 4 days I was up there. I never had so much fresh air in my life and it did me the world of good!

As for the residents of Fort William, I have to say that everyone we met up there was extremely friendly and hospitable. I only wish visitors to London felt as welcome as us Londoners felt welcomed up there (which sadly is not the case in general)! They had some problem understanding my London accent and I had to listen carefully to understand the local Scottish accents (which I have to point out that I adore) but wasn't made to feel a nuisance or an inconvenience.

Thank you for reading thus far, as you can hopefully tell, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay in this wonderfully friendly place and would love to visit again within the next year hopefully.

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p.s. as my title suggests FORT WILLIAM REALLY DOES ROCK !!!

p.p.s. as I read in another review recently about this part of Scotland about lots of midges (sincerely forgive me for not remembering whose review it was) I would add that we encountered no midges whilst we were up there NYAH NYAH :))