Nessie still a monster draw for Scotland
Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness was built in the 1200s and is still one of the all-time great views of the loch in Scotland. Credit: MCT
If you believe, you will see.
Single-handedly - or should we say, single-finnedly - Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, has kept a brisk tourist business going in the Scottish Highlands for 80 years.
Giant tour buses trundle down the narrow roads. Passengers crane their necks to get a glimpse of - what? A hump, a head, a funny-looking wave - anything to tell the folks back home.
Does everyone see the Loch Ness Monster? "Everyone this high does," says a shopkeeper at the Clansman Hotel, grinning and raising her hand to waist-level. "If you ask, they all say they saw Nessie. Everyone else is here just for the fun." Of course, that's not really true. I would love to see Nessie, and I'm a grown-up.
MONSTER-SPOTTING
Loch Ness, a narrow finger of water 25 miles long and 755 feet deep, is tucked way up in the Scottish Highlands. When the wind blows, waves roll and chop in mysterious ways, making it easy to believe in a sea serpent below.
I know this because I was on a tour boat fighting its way down the loch. Even under blue skies, our bow was awash in crashing, head-on waves. Passengers got soaked.
Outside the Clansman Hotel in Scotland is a scary model of what the Loch Ness monster might look like: strangely like a dinosaur. Credit: MCT Photo
"It's like the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls," one woman joked - except nobody has a raincoat.
At its quietest, Loch Ness is a calm, blue pool surrounded by green hills and quiet cliffs. Or so I've heard. But my experience was of a strong, powerful body of water, as deep as Lake Huron. Salmon, trout, eels and Arctic char swim in its murky depths. Deer live on the banks.
But in 1933, a local woman named Mrs. MacKay saw a whale-like creature in the loch, confirming strange sightings that date to 565. After that, people from a local priest to tourists have spotted the Loch Ness Monster. That spawned fame, hoaxes, scientists with sonar, skeptics and believers.
NESSIE HOT SPOTS Today, pretty much everyone accepts that it's rather unlikely that such a creature could exist in the northern latitudes of Scotland in a lake that was formed only 10,000 years ago during the last ice age - the same age as the Great Lakes.
But if you stay at Loch Ness, you'll find Nessie is very much alive. She's alive in the hopeful faces of boat passengers. She's alive in the Nessie-themed beer, magnets, plastic statues and silly souvenirs.
She's alive because we wish it so. And there's nothing wrong with that.
The nicest surprise about Loch Ness is how very beautiful the region is. Before this trip, I'd heard that the Loch Ness region was tacky, touristy and getting built up. That is absolutely not the case. It's clean, fresh and at least 99 percent tasteful.
Most of the tourist action centers on the village of Drumnadrochit (Drum-na- DROCH-it), a scenic spot that could be plucked out of any cozy Scottish mystery.
URQUHART CASTLE A mournful 13th century ruin on Loch Ness, it is one of Scotland's top tourist attractions. But the actual draw of the castle has to be that it's the prime photo op for Loch Ness, the castle a prop in the foreground. Near the castle is the deepest part of the loch, the scene of many a claimed Nessie sighting (about $12, www.historic-scotland.gov.uk).
MUSEUM In Drumnadrochit, the Loch Ness Centre & Exhibition is a fairly well-done museum about the legend, lore and science of the Loch Ness Monster. The Nessie gift shop, meanwhile, puts the tack in tacky (about $10, lochness.com).
BOAT RIDE Get out on Loch Ness for a one-hour tour with Jacobite Cruises, which sails from Clansman Harbour (about $18, jacobite.co.uk).
EAT Fiddler's restaurant is a destination for fish chowder, Scotch broth and steaks. It also stocks 600 Scottish whiskys, served in a glass etched with the saying "I had a dram with Nessie" (fiddledrum.co.uk).
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE From Edinburgh or Glasgow, Scotland, it's a 4 or 41/2-hour drive to Loch Ness. Fly to nearby Inverness from London Gatwick, or take a train from Edinburgh or Glasgow.
STAY Loch Ness Clansman Hotel. Plaid carpet, old-fashioned, nothing super-special except the great view of Loch Ness (about $130/night or $150 for a loch view, lochnessview.com). Drumnadrochit also has nice bed-and-breakfasts (drumnadrochit.co.uk).
