inverness

What potentialities does this have? How can it most productively strive against its own reactionary marketing & outmoded* orthodoxies?

*http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Inverness_Ness_Footbridge_15760.JPG

Mallness.

And what do to in it!

(I have not been since I was a child, all of my relatives who lived there are now dead (tho I am weirdly excited, as a taphophile, about visiting some graves of actual people I am related to? I've never done that before!) I don't know what will be open due to covid.)

I don't drive, so I'm very much limited to public transportation. Will there be any actual ridiculous ~queue up here for a bus to visit THE MONSTER~ tourist tat, or will it all be silly tartan highland bosh.

Highly recommend Leakey's secondhand/antiquarian bookshop in Inverness - not the cheapest, but an awesome selection and a great building:

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/f8/70/35/leakey-s-second-hand.jpg

OMG that looks amazing - I will need some books for the 8 hour train journey!

Get a bus to Foyers where you will find one of Britain's finest waterfalls (unfortunately affected by a hydro scheme but only found truly wanting in dry weather and frighteningly powerful in wet) and Boleskine House, once owned by Aleister Crowley and, less interestingly, Jimmy Page (tho it's not much to look at in itself tbf). Right on the loch too

Get a bus to Foyers where you will find one of Britain's finest waterfalls (unfortunately affected by a hydro scheme but only found truly wanting in dry weather and frighteningly powerful in wet) and Boleskine House, once owned by Aleister Crowley and, less interestingly, Jimmy Page (tho it's not much to look at in itself tbf). Right on the loch too

ffs

bus up the other side will take you to Drumnadrochit and Urquhart Castle for monster vibes and also Invermoriston where there are more nice waterfalls and a good cafe last time I went

down the other side actually (of the loch)

Thanks, those are good tips! I can see my immediate future involving a lot of busses.

Not only have I found the Victorian cemetery where most of my ancestors are buried, I have found that this same cemetery contains monuments - including creepy Victorian grave angels! - designed by a different relative.

I am unreasonably excited about this.

Highly recommend Leakey's secondhand/antiquarian bookshop in Inverness - not the cheapest, but an awesome selection and a great building

I can second this. I visited Inverness a couple of times in 2000 and 2001 as my then-partner was from the area (Nairn specifically) and that was indeed a truly awesome bookstore.

OMG Leakey's is a dreadful, dreadful, terrible place of fear and trembling, I wandered in there on a rainy morning and didn't come out for three days, god help us all that place could have been my DOOM!

Also, pro-tip, the best views in Inverness are from the top of the fairy hill in Tomnahurich.