Meng's Travels: Road to Oban

I started on the Highland Explorer Tour today (Monday, May 13). After looking through several brochures, I decided that the 5-day tour suits me best. I wanted to take the 7- or 10-day Haggis tour but they do not run until the end of May, which is too late for me. These two tours would have taken me further north to a place called Orkney. There is not much there but at least I would have said that I covered all of Scotland.
The 5-day Highland Explorer Tour is not a backpacker tour, which means travelers don't stay in hostels and they are usually older. We stay either in bed-and-breakfasts places or small hotels. Obviously, it is a little more expensive but you don't have the rowdiness of the backpackers. There are 20 of us on the coach with 2 drivers/guides. A number of the travelers are for Canada, some from the US, and the others are mostly from other European countries.
We started in downtown Edinburgh and traveled northwest towards Stirling. Near Stirling we stopped at the Wallace Monument. William Wallace is a legend in Scottish history. He was played by Mel Gibson in the movie, "Braveheart." I saw the movie many years ago and now that I know more about Scottish history, I will probably watch it again.
Near the Wallace Monument is Stirling Castle, where we stopped but did not go in. After Stirling Castle, we stopped in Duone Castle, where a number of scenes from the movie, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," were shot. Again I saw the movie many years ago but when walking through the castle with a walking tour guide, I was reminded of the many great scenes from the movie.
Then we drove through some spectacular scenery through the Scottish Highlands to Glencoe. Some of the mountains remind me of New Zealand but there were many battles fought between the clans in this part of Scotland. The most famous of which is the Massacre of Glencoe in which most of the McDonald Clan were slaughtered by the Campbell Clan. We finally arrived in Oban in the late afternoon. Oban is a fishing village on the west coast of Scotland.
In rural Scotland, Gaelic is commonly spoken here. I used to think only the Irish speak Gaelic but the Scots speak a similar type of Gaelic. They understand each other but the words are pronounced differently.