You know, at the completion of this day, I was convinced it was my favorite. I would later say this about every day after. The only thing that we had planned for the day was a fancy dinner in Inverness. I didn't even know about it because Garrett had secretly planned for it. However, the night before, we had done a quick search and found a few options of things to do.

We drove to Beauly to see the Beauly Priory, an old abandoned monastic community established in the 13th and 14th century. Before exploring the Priory, we ate at the Priory Hotel that was right beside the monastery.

Garrett and I ordered a pot of tea. He ate meat pie and the most delicious mandarin orange cheesecake. I was totally kicking myself for not ordering that for myself. He was gracious enough to let me eat a bite or two. I ate a bowl of soup and pork burger. We also had a lovely conversation with our waitress who was from New Zealand (she called herself a Kiwi) about places to go and the best routes to get there. I just love nice people!

The monastery was in a bit of ruin. However, it was understandable considering its age and that most of its stone had been seized by Cromwell to build Inverness Castle. There wasn't a roof and parts of the once expansive building were missing. Oh, but the history that was there was incredible. There were tombs, holy water vessel, wall cupboards, and more.

After our exploration of the priory, we made the decision to head to Fort George. Boy, am I glad we did! The fort was built in the 1700's but is still a working military fort to this day. There is plenty of history in this fort to explore, but there are also many building you cannot enter, because it is in current use by the military.

Fort George is on the North Sea. When we arrived to the fort, the mist was rolling in like clouds giving the whole thing a mystical feel. I hope you can see the mist in the photos I took.

It didn't stay too long which was good, because little did we know that Fort George is a premier place to dolphin watch. We didn't really think we'd see any, but we hadn't been looking for more than 2 minutes when one popped up. We ended up seeing a dolphin about a dozen times!

While Fort George almost didn't make it on our itinerary, I'm so glad we went. It was not only interesting, but very beautiful, and a great place to take a stroll. They also offer free audio tours.

We made our way back to Inverness to get ready for our fancy dinner. Garrett had made reservations to Rocpool, and we took a taxi to the restaurant. The restaurant was sold out. We were escorted to a corner table by the window with a view of Inverness Castle!!!

We couldn't have had better seats. For our starters, I had fried gnocchi with duck ragu and Garrett had pork belly. For our main course, I chose lamb on couscous with pomegranate, asparagus, and goat cheese. Garrett selected loin of veal with black pudding, haggis, and potatoes. Creme brulle was the final dish. It was all amazing. Garrett did good...real good.

We decided to walk back to our hotel rather than grab a taxi. That was also a wonderful decision. We walked along the river as the sunset, and it was all simply perfect.

Tips:

Go to Fort George. It's worth it.
Stop along the road. If you see something cool, don't be afraid to take a photo shoot. That's what we did, and I love them! This was on the way to Fort George. You can actually see a shadow of it in the right side of the first photo below.

Honeymooning in Scotland--Day 4

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