We arrived in Glencoe on a very rainy afternoon from Isle of Skye. It is a very small village just above of the Argyll and Bute region. Here, we checked in to a lovely hostel inside an old colonial house where we enjoyed soup and toast and met other travellers. During our time in Glencoe we were wanting to do a couple of hikes, including Ben Nevis – the UK’s highest mountain. Unfortunately the bad weather would have made this too dangerous, especially without proper navigational equipment so we gave it a miss and did some short walks around the village instead. Glencoe was a filming location for the first four Harry Potter films, with our hostel host featuring as an extra in the first movie when he was twelve. Knowing this, combined with the mist and beautiful woodlands gave this village a very whimsical and magical feeling. Due to the rain we only took photos with the go pro here.

The magic continued the following day with good weather in the morning. This meant we were able to visit Glenfinnan, about an hours drive from Glencoe to see the Hogwarts Express go past on the Glenfinnan Viaduct. The old Jacobite steam train is the same train used to film the Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter movies and goes past a viewing area twice a day in summertime. We arrived at 9am to get a coffee and a car park before walking 15 minutes up the hill to watch the train go past. This was absolutely worth it as you can see from the photos (postcard worthy.)

Magical Scotland continued the following day with an incredibly scenic drive from Glencoe to the Argyll and Bute region. We were on a mission to visit the Old Maclachan Castle which is linked to my family tree somewhere along the line. The castle is in ruin and in a beautiful location right on the water. The new castle was nice too, but 2000 pounds a night to stay there was slightly out of our price range 🤑🤑. Instead, we continued on to a fabulous spot – Lochgoilhead where we spent the night at the Goil Inn. The next post on that!