Tuesday in Inverness

As planned, we moved into a B&B on the other side of the river. It is small but very nice, recently refurbished. The owner is from Mauritius, Indian heritage, and he was surprised that we knew where it is. We've been very comfortable and the breakfast is good, as it has been everywhere. Our street is right at the end of the northern of the two pedestrian bridges. It is a quick walk to be in the center of town. This elaborate funeral home (certainly once a church) is near us; this picture is from the bridge.

The first thing I did after breakfast was to go to the launderette. It is only about 2 block away, so an easy walk. I was able to wash and dry all our laundry in about an hour for £9.

We did a good bit of walking around and a little bit of shopping. We found this Victorian shopping arcade right in the middle of downtown. It was nice to be inside for a bit, even though it wasn't extremely cold or wet.

The very large Eastgate Mall is right next to the downtown, which is unusual in our experience. (And right next to the Marks and Spencer Food Hall, which made me want to fill a cart with all the amazing options). We happened around a corner just at noon and saw this huge clock in motion. There were quite a few children and parents standing around to watch the various figures move and play music.

This cock-a-leekie soup is actually from a few days ago. We stopped along the road and were happy to find it. I had heard of it, but not had it -- chicken, leeks and rice in broth. Very tasty.

Last evening we didn't want to go far and found an inexpensive place that did both take-away and eat-in. Dan had wanted to try a steak pie and it was pretty good. I had the mince pie and it was fine, too. But so many chips!

Tonight we found a fancier place attached to a hotel that had an early dinner special -- two courses for  £9.95. We had an appetizer of potato skins to share, then Dan had an even better steak pie. They kindly substituted vegetables for more chips.

I had a salmon salad. Light and very good. We shared a sticky toffee pudding with ice cream for dessert.

Tomorrow we head south along Loch Ness to Oban.