All photos for this trip can be found in our
2017 Scotland/Paris Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
2017 Scotland/Paris Photo Album
Look for the "Week 1" tag for photos added this week.
Well, that was a long day to start the trip. Up at 3:00 AM Wednesday morning to catch a ride to the Comox airport around 4:15 (a big shout out to cousin Rupert for getting up so darn early and giving us a ride) to get to the airport an hour before our flight. A short hop to Vancouver to arrive about 6:45; breakfast at the Vancouver airport White Spot with our friend Marian then a 4 hour wait until our 9.5 hour flight to Frankfurt. We shared our row with Lisa, a woman from Vancouver who, along with a couple of friends were setting off on a 3 week tour around Italy. Meals on the plane were pretty good; video system was a bit flaky but got in a couple of movies; got in some sleep but not the best quality.
Arriving in Frankfurt we were surprised to find that we did not have to clear EU customs and our baggage would be tagged straight through to Edinburgh. Since we were delayed an hour out of Vancouver, our 8 hour wait in the Frankfurt airport was reduced to under 7. After finding a place for a nice hot latte, we found some comfortable lounge chairs where we fell asleep for a couple of the hours then hit a restaurant for some excellent German sausages for lunch before heading over to the gate for the last few hours before our flight to Edinburgh. On the Lufthansa flight they served up a smoked salmon sandwich that had some real zingy horseradish on it. Wasn't expecting that.
Here is what Scotland looks like from above the clouds...
... and here is what it looks like from under the clouds :-) ...
As we descended we got a pretty decent view of central Edinburgh.. The high point in the middle is the Edinburgh Castle (we weren't sure but it was confirmed by a guy in the pub later).
So, approximately 33 hours after leaving home we cleared UK customs and were on our way to the Sherwood Guest House, our home for the next 4 nights. We were met by Vivienne, who gave us an intro to the workings of the house and sent us on our way to a local pub to get some food. She recommended the local Old Bell pub but it was full with no empty table so we walked up the street and found The Grange. Kris decided to jump right in and try some Haggis, which turned out to be quite good, and Brian tried the Scottish fish and chips which also turned out to be quite good. We were so hungry we forgot to take a pic of the haggis but they do have the cutest ketchup containers...
Thursday morning we got up in time to check out the breakfast served at our guest house. Excellent! Afterwards we chatted with the proprietor, Vivienne, who gave us some good info, specifically about how to get to Rosslyn Chapel and where to go to get our phones set up for Scotland. The #37 bus to Rosslyn Chapel stops right across the road from the guest house and took about a half hour to get there...
The Chapel is a small but quite magnificent building...
... there are more outside pics of Rosslyn Chapel in our 2017 Scotland/Paris Photo Album - Week 1. No photos allowed inside the Chapel but you can read more about it at the Rosslyn Chapel website.
Leaving the Chapel we walked back into the wee town of Roslin (yes, it is spelled differently) and caught the #37 bus back into central Edinburgh. We stopped at the somewhat mid-sized Cameron Toll shopping mall (as per Vivienne's suggestion) where we found an EE store and picked up a couple of new SIM cards for our phones. 30 GBP (about $52 CDN) for 2 monthly pay as you go plans that should give us more than enough talk, text and data while we are here. Compare that with the $60 US or so we paid for one month for one phone in the US last year. The only drawback is that we cannot call Canada on these plans. We'll figure something out.
Afterwards we jumped on a bus and headed for Old Town and got off on the corner of High Street and South Bridge. Right around the corner, on the Royal Mile, we found a Starbucks so stopped in for a couple of lattes. Then we walked around the area a bit eventually making our way over to Princess Street to a Marks & Spencers, a store we quite liked when they were in Calgary many years ago. Early evening, we went into The Booking Office, a pub of the Wetherspoon chain recommended by our friends Bill and Nora. Decent food (chicken salad for Kris and a burger for Brian), beer not bad but the wine tasted a tad watered down). Later we headed over to the local pub, the Old Bell, for a bit...
Friday, after breakfast at the guest house, we headed down to the Royal Mile where our first stop was Starbucks just off High Street. Afterward we wandered down then back up the Royal Mile looking in numerous stores and making our way up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. After a rather lengthy half hour or so in the ticket line we were finally in. A bit of a steep walk up into the castle leads to some pretty spectacular views out over the city towards the Firth of Forth....
Our main objective for visiting the castle was to view the Crown Jewels and the Stone of Destiny. No pics allowed in the gallery but here are pics taken from postcards...
As a note... the esplanade just outside the castle entrance was under what looked like heavy construction of grandstand seating. We enquired as to what they were building. Turns out they are de-contructing. Every year is held the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo (we won't try to explain it, just check out the link) as part of the Edinburgh Festival. Since the Edinburgh Castle is on National Trust grounds the grandstands must be taken down after the festival. So, every year it takes about 5 weeks to construct the grandstands, they are up for 5 weeks then it takes 5 weeks to take them down. Massively expensive!
Anyway, leaving the castle we walked down the Royal Mile for a bit, stopping at a Caffe Nero coffee place for a couple of excellent lattes, before heading off on a hunt for some knitting needles Kris needs for some of her workshops at Shetland Wool Week. After a bit of a snark hunt and several bus rides we visited two yarn stores but the hunt was successful. The first place, Ginger Twist Studio supplied a few needles. Turns out the woman who owns Ginger Twist is from Hillsdale in Oregon. She recommended we try Kathy's Knits for the remaining needles. It was a short bus ride away and did not disappoint. Turns out Kathy is also going to Shetland Wool Week so we will likely meet up with her there. Just up the street from Kathy's Knits we came across the Conan Doyle pub...
... where we had fish cakes (Kris) and a beef and mushroom pie (Brian) along with a couple of glasses of Chardonnay for an early dinner. From there we jumped on a tram over to Princes Street for a bit more shopping at Marks & Spencers before heading home for the evening. After a brief rest we headed over to the Old Bell for a nightcap. While there we met a German couple who had just arrived in Edinburgh a few hours earlier for a quick getaway weekend to celebrate their anniversary. Nice folks.
Saturday was our last full day in Edinburgh. After another excellent breakfast at the guest house we took a bus into central Edinburgh to end up along Princes Street. We stopped for a couple of lattes in a Caffe Nero then went to the National Art Gallery. The National Art Gallery has free admission (sweet) and is a somewhat small gallery with about a dozen or so rooms and quite a good collection on display. We took in a number of Monet, Gauguin and numerous others. Here are a couple of Monet paintings that we liked...
Leaving the museum we stopped on the plaza to watch a young 3 man busker band (drummer, guitar and bagpipes), The Spinning Blowfish, where we took a short video...
.... and bought one of their CDs. Fun! Check them out on youtube!
Then Kris did a bit of shopping while Brian walked up Princes Street to a Barclay's Bank (they are part of the consortium with Scotia Bank that waive each other's fees) to pick up a bit more cash for our days on the road (starting tomorrow). Also into an EE store where he was told the other EE store sold him the wrong SIM card plan if he wanted to be able to call Canada. So a new card was bought and the old one will act as a backup if Kris's card runs out of data. A successful call to our home number in Canada revealed only one message... a call from ICBC wanting Brian to call them and give them his statement regarding an accident we witnessed a couple of weeks ago. WTF... the police have the statement. After wandering around looking in stores for a bit we went into Jenners, an upscale department store that originally opened in 1838 and was Scotland's oldest independent department store until 2005 when it was acquired by the House of Fraser. They have a cafe where we had afternoon tea. "Cream Tea" that is... two freshly baked scones, a pot of thick cream, a pot of jam, a couple of pieces of fruit and a pot of tea. Very nice...
... and that was that for our exploration of central Edinburgh. We headed back to the guest house where, after a short nap, we did most of our packing, for our departure tomorrow, then walked over to the Old Bell for some dinner. While watching some football (aka soccer to us) we dined on some fishcakes (Kris) and sausages (Brian) along with some ale and wine. Nice boisterous pub on a Saturday evening. :-)
Sunday morning we finished packing, had some breakfast and called a taxi to take us to the Arnold Clark Car Rental place near the Edinburgh Airport where our adventure into the Scottish hinterland began. The car they gave us is a Suzuki Baleno. Not a bad looking car with decent room but the builtin Sat Nav system didn't seem to work that well so they gave us a cheap TomTom. As the day wore on we thought we definitely should have brought our Garmin. Oh well, it will do the trick, we hope! Today's route...
It was rather overcast in Edinburgh to start but no sooner we were on the road than the skies opened up. It basically rained pretty hard all the way. Not the best weather to be retesting Brian's ability to drive a standard on the left side of the road. Comes back pretty fast! Not to mention the traffic was very heavy; we suspected a lot of city folks returning home after a summer vacation.
We stopped at a couple of woollen mills...
... where we got a good closeup view of some highland cattle...
The scenery through Loch Lomond & The Trossacks National Park on through Glencoe is absolutely spectacular. We did stop and risked being thoroughly soaked but got some decent pics...
... in nice weather, without the low cloud cover, the whole area truly would be something to see. In general the drive today reminded us a lot of the drive south west of Calgary along the foothills through Longview down to the Crowsnest Pass.
By the time we reached our B&B, the Mansefield House just outside of Fort William, it was early evening so we checked in and got directions to the nearest pub with good food and immediately set off for the Lochy Inn where we had a burger (Brian) and a spicy beef salad (Kris). Afterwards we sat in the lounge at the B&B, chatted with the owner and finished this blog along with a nice bottle of red wine. End of this week!
| On to Week 2 |
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