Scotland

We spent five days in Scotland, longer than we spent in the other countries. We spent the first day and a half in Edinburgh. They pronounce it “Edinboro.” We had a guided tour of Edinburgh Castle. That was the first site we visited on the trip that was very particular about our entrance time. I do not enjoy the added stress that comes with the fact that timed entrances are required for SO many activities. Most places were very accommodating even when we showed up rather early. Thankfully they bent their rules a little and let us come in prior to the time of our guided tour. Most of the places I had made dinner reservations, reservations weren’t actually necessary, but it did come in handy at the Makars Mash Bar. We tried different types of mash(ed potatoes). When planning vacations I try to choose the top rated activities, but when it comes to food, affordability factors in far more heavily. This restaurant is rated the second best casual dining in the UK, but due to three of us ordering bowls of tomato soup instead of a main dish, it wasn’t a splurge financially. The kids’ favorite activity that day was the Camera Obscura. Because of the late nights, we decided to skip the hike up Calton Hill. We stayed at an apartment on the outskirts of the city. The washer and dryer were two separate machines, but the dryer was utterly pathetic. I was babysitting the dryer from 4:30 am onward. Some of the clothes were still wet when we left. When Paul and I were in London in 2002, our hotel room was so small we barely had room for a suitcase. The room was almost the same size as the bed. Thankfully that hasn’t been the case this time around. 

Wednesday morning we had pastries from a bakery for breakfast and then hiked up Arthur’s Seat trail. One of the types of pastries was called a yum yum. The pastries were delicious and the views on the hike were beautiful! I had my first two sightings of the Eurasian magpie, which I saw elsewhere on the trip. We had lunch at the Haggis Box which was in the same building as John Knox’s house, which we visited after we ate. Oliver had haggis with neeps and tatties (mashed turnips and potatoes). Ian and Paul tried a bite of Oliver’s haggis the next time he ordered it. After touring John Knox’s home, we had gelato (second time on the trip for Oliver and I and third time for Ian and Nadia). Next we visited St. Giles Cathedral where John Knox was the first Protestant pastor there (it had been a Catholic Church prior to that). We didn’t have any timed reservations that day which was so freeing!! No tickets are needed for St Giles, a hike, or the National Museum of Scotland, and no advance tickets are needed for the John Knox site. We also visited some places that JK Rowling had used as inspiration for the Harry Potter books. We have never spent so much time trying to find specific gravestones in a cemetery before, ha ha! We had a delicious and inexpensive dinner at the Piemaker. Nadia and I really enjoyed our feta vergas. Oliver loved his macaroni cheese pie. Our day ended with the Kelpies in Falkirk. Had I known that our ride on the Falkirk Wheel was going to be cancelled, I would have booked an apartment in Sterling, but the upside of where we stayed was the fact the dryer actually worked! By the time we left we had washed and dried all our dirty laundry, and we didn’t lose any sleep to accomplish that feat.

Thursday morning Paul asked for us to visit the Battle of Bannockburn since we couldn’t ride a boat on the Falkirk Wheel as planned. The kids stayed in the SUV. We all went on a guided tour of Stirling Castle after we had explored part of it ourselves. Nadia dubbed this vacation- castles and cathedrals. We’ve climbed a LOT of stairs on this trip. Most of them have been very narrow circular steps. There were 246 of those steps at the National Wallace Memorial. When planning vacations I always factor in how much driving will be required. Sometimes we skip something that sounds really good because of how much extra driving would be required (ex. Big Bend National Park in May last year). If we had skipped the Isle of Skye on this trip, we would have saved a lot of driving, but our hike ended up being Nadia’s favorite thing we did in Scotland so I think I made the right call. 

We spent one night on the island in a boutique hostel. We had a room with four bunk beds. My preference would have been to get a room with six beds, but that one didn’t come with its own bathroom. Paul preferred having our own bathroom so he and I squeezed into one twin size bottom bunk. Obviously neither of us slept well. We had stopped at a grocery store on the way there the night before to buy an ice cream treat to eat right away and some food for breakfast and supper the next day. The view from the Cowshed bunkhouse was amazing! Unfortunately, it was very foggy and was misting during our first 2.5 hour hike at Quiraing. Oliver really wanted to do the loop that included hiking over the top, but we weren’t all capable of that so we went out and back. The views were utterly stunning, but it was rather nerve wracking as if you slipped, you’d probably die, and we had to scramble over walks and through a waterfall. I wasn’t always sure I was capable, but I succeeded and never fell down. The fog had lessened on our walk back, but the wind had blown the mist onto us so the backside of our clothes were soaked. Our next stop was just a viewpoint for a waterfall. We planned to hike the Old Man of Storr hike, but due to the fact we were wearing wet clothes, we opted to skip it. Given how full the parking lot was there, I’m not certain we would have been able to park there anyhow. We got found a bathroom in Portree where we could change into dry clothes and bought some individual wood fired pizzas that we ate in the SUV. On our drive to our bed and breakfast we stopped to look at the Eilean Donan Castle, our last for the trip. Thankfully our drive toward Glasgow was much less stressful than our drive from Stirling. There were so many sections of that windy, curvy road that were two way but only one narrow lane! Yikes! We’ve seen a lot of sheep this entire trip (except in the big cities), but Paul was disappointed that he didn’t get a glimpse of any Highland cows in Scotland. That is a disadvantage of being the driver. 

We spent our last night in Scotland at a bed and breakfast. The couple served us s lovely breakfast. We ordered what we wanted the night before. Breakfast was included. We paid extra for five bag lunches plus one small load of laundry that the wife did since our clothes were wet from the hike. We had a very short drive to a birds of prey center. We had booked a 90 minute owl experience. Paul and the kids each interacted with three different owls. I took pictures. Then we watched a 45 minute flying show before walking to the pier where our 60 minute boat cruise on Loch Lommond departed. Next we drove to Glasgow and visited the Riverside Museum. They were having a music festival there that weekend so the Glenlee tall ship was closed. We had dinner and filled the gas tank before checking into the Holiday Inn at the Glasgow Airport. Paul returned the SUV while I checked in to the hotel. We had two rooms again. Unfortunately, Nadia left her Kindle in the room she and Ian shared. She also left her Alaska hoodie somewhere else in Scotland. Not having the adapter has been far more annoying, but that didn’t cost anywhere near as much as the items she left behind.

The cooked breakfast didn’t start until 6:30, which was when we felt we should walk to the terminal. We were able to eat a continental breakfast. It turned out we could have eaten the hot breakfast as we waited awhile at the airport before they even told us what gate to go to. It was a domestic flight so we didn’t go through immigration. Their security was very sensitive. They even tested my stick of deodorant?!? I’ve never had that happen before. The weird thing is that Nadia had the exact same kind of deodorant in her bag, and they didn’t test hers. It was a very short flight to Belfast. Thankfully, I’ve gotten on a very good streak with making it through the body scanners without any issues. We’ve learned to take off hiking boots even if it’s not required because they set off the scanners.