United Kingdom: Day 28 – Scotland’s Loch Lomond

From Edinburgh, we headed over to Glasgow for an Olympic soccer game (more on Olympics later!).  I heard that there wasn’t much for tourists to do in Glasgow and I desparately wanted to see a loch during my time in Scotland (a lake for you non-Scots out there).  So we, spur of the moment, headed out to the quasi-highlands of Scotland – Loch Lomond.  The best way to get to Loch Lomond from Glasgow (besides paying for an official tour) is by taking the train from Glasgow Queens Street station to the Balloch station.  There is also a bus option, but the bus drops you off WAY outside of the town of Balloch and you have to walk down a sketchy path that you aren’t sure where it takes you (I’m speaking from experience as we took the bus to Balloch and the train back to Glasgow.  A random little Scottish man followed us down the path and then proceeded to talk to us with his heavy accent.  To this day, I have NO idea what he said.  All I heard was mumble mumble loch mumble mumble.  I nodded and smiled in response, sometimes I even laughed because he did.  Take the train, no language translation issues were found here).  Another added bonus: right when you walk out of the Balloch train station is the Tourist Information center.  They gave us info about boat tours (Sweeney’s Cruise) that takes you out in Loch Lomond for an hour or even 2 hours (sorry Gilligan Island fans, no 3 hour tours).  We also had time to walk around Balloch Castle County Park and take in the view of the loch from the park – on the recommendation of of the TI guy.  Scotland’s weather agreed with our day adventure to the Loch too.  Beautiful day.