Inverness and loch ness

There is no doubt about it - Inverness is the best place to base a visit to all the many attractions of the surrounding highlands.

Inverness was designated a city in the millennium year 2000. However, settlements in the area date back several thousand years and can be seen at sites such as Clava Cairns a few miles from Inverness, a place definitely worth a visit and Craig Phadrig, an Iron Age hill fort nearby, from which there are splendid views of Inverness. Read oin in this section to discover all the delights and visitor highlights of Inverness, capital of the Scottish highlands.

And there are very few people in the modern world who have not heard of Loch Ness! The Loch Ness Monster, ‘Nessie’, is a recurrent figure in modern literature, television movies and games. Loch Ness, the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles, is twenty four miles long and, at one point, one and a half miles wide. It has an average depth of four hundred and fifty feet and at times plunges close to a thousand. It is cold and murky, with dangerous currents. In short, it is the perfect place to hide a monster from even the most prying eyes of science.

Many lochs of Northern Scotland had ancient legends about monsters and the like. In 565 A.D., though, Loch Ness's story was written down. The account tells of Saint Columba who saved a swimmer from the  hungry lake monster. From then on rumours about the creature were repeated from time to time. New searches for Nessie take place almost daily, by tourists and experts alike!