We hit the road early on Saturday morning after an unexpectedly late Friday night spent chatting in our flat (after watching Pan’s Labyrith – a must see at Glasgow’s world’s tallest cineplex). Our destination was a small pub and Scotland’s smallest distillery in Pitlochry in the Grampian Mountains. While we didn’t quite make it as far as we had hoped due to a few unintentional diversions, we did see some breathtaking scenery, manage a pub lunch and visit not just a distlerry but the ‘World of Whiskey’ no less.
Our initial destination was Loch Lomond (above) – Scotland’s largest Loch and not far up the road from our place. It was quite a beautiful drive along it’s banks, with a brief stop at Luss for a few very rugged up happy snaps and later in an unassuming roadside pub for a fireside coffee. The walls of the pub were covered in notes from walkers of the West Highland Way – provoking enthusiastic planning of walking trips that have been quite effectively doused by this morning’s weather.
After taking a slight detour back almost to where we began, we ended up on a stunning tourist road through bare hills dotted with isolated white farmhouses in front of a backdrop of snow dusted peaks. This was all very well but tummys were rumbling so we pulled up for a pub lunch beside an open fire (the fire was the highlight rather than the food) in a picturesque little town called Aberfeldy coicedentially the name of a cute Edinburgh band whose music a friend has introduced us to.
Time was getting away from us after lunch so instead of Scotlands smallest distillery, which was still a way up the road we opted to the close at hand Dewars World of Whiskey, whose cheesey kitch entertained us for quite a while. We left, confident in the knowledge that Dewar’s is the world best marketed whiskey (if not actually any good) and sped home via the motorway – 1 & 1/2 hours as opposed to the 4 it had taken us to get there!!
pictures courtesy of Chris Haan
