JerrysJourneys

Walk through history as we take a trip into the past. Linda and I are taking an overnight flight tonight to Paris. Linda located an apartment on the Seine River in the Latin district of Paris near Notre Dame Cathedral. We will stay there for the next 4 nights and will join our tour group on November the 5th. Our group is small, 5 people, along with our tour guide and a French historian. We will leave Paris on the 6th and take a walking tour of the World War I American Battlefields and return to Paris for a ceremony to commemorate the 111 year anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that signified the end of the "War to end all Wars". We will walk where Sergeant Alvin York won the Medal of Army and visit the location where the "Lost Battalion" held the Germans at bay for 6 days in the Argonne Forest. The battalion, an element of the 77th Division, went into battle on October 2 with 554 men and walked out 6 days later with 194 soldiers. 197 were killed in ...

This trip has come to an end. We are home now. It has been a great trip. We toured several castles, walked the Royal Mile, stood on Hadrian's Wall, and had a flat tire on the Isle of Skye. I ate Haggis and Skink soup. No one else would. I believe you should embrace the culture of the country you are in, this includes their culinary tastes. We did not find the Loch Ness monster or see a unicorn. We did see the Highlander cows and a ton of sheep. The weather was good and the scenery was beautiful and then it was time to go home. We left Inverness and drove to Edinburgh. This was a 4 hour drive through the rain. We stopped in Perth for lunch at Effie's Cafe and then continued on to Edinburgh. We had reservations at the Edinburgh Carlton. We dropped Linda and Amanda at the hotel and drove to the Enterprise car rental and turned in our car. We took one last walk around Edinburgh and later, we had our last meal in Edinburgh at the Old Bell Inn. We took a taxi to the ai...

Rainy days and Mondays. If you come to Scotland bring your rain gear. The morning started off nice, the sun was shining and the temperature was comfortable. We left the cottage and drove along the Loch Ness for 20 miles to Urquhart Castle This location was also where the last reported sighting of the Loch Monster was recorded 1n 1998. A touring adventure, like no other, was awaiting us. The ruins of Urquhart, the largest medieval castle in Scotland, date from the 13th to the 16th century. Urquhart played a role in the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 14th century.  It was largely abandoned in the middle of the 17th century and partially destroyed in 1692 to prevent the Jacobites from using it. The castle ruins are open to the public and is the 3rd most visited historic castle behind Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle. You may have read about this castle while you were in school, but it was hard to grasp the significance of the castle until you can see it for yourself. T...

We left Isle of Skye yesterday and drove to Inverness. When we left it was cold, wet, and rainy. Once we got inland aways, the sun was shining and the day was very pleasant, a convertible day. We had an uneventful trip and got to Inverness around 12:30. We found a car park, had lunch, and walked around Inverness until we could check into our cottage. It is a nice place, 3 B/R, 2 bath, two story, about 5 miles out of town. Tomorrow will be a wal through history as we go back in time to the 17th century and visit the Battle of Culloden battlefield, a castle from the 14th century, and back to the Bronze Age to the Clava Cairns. Today we started with the Battle of Culloden. This battle, fought on 16 April 1746, lasted less than one hour. The British army, numbering 7,000 soldiers met the Jacobite army, numbering 5,000 soldiers. The British were led by Prince William Agustus, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Jacobites were led by Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charli...