“You deserve someone who makes you feel like you’ve been struck by f***ing lightning. Don’t you dare settle for fine.”

-Roy Kent (in Ted Lasso)

Euro trip - Nov 2019 - Part 5 (Scotland Day 3)

20 Nov 2019 - West Highlands, Lochs, and Castles

The tour started later than the previous one the day before -- a whole 15 minutes later! 😂  This tour though is supposed to be shorter than the previous day's with more time at each stop. So... yey!!!

There weren't a lot of places open for breakfast at 7 in the morning, so our choices were limited. We decided on a Costa Coffee by the Waverley train station to have our coffees and sandwiches and some pastries, on our way to the Rabbie's tour place. 

Much like the day before, after checking in, we were assigned our mini-bus and driver/tour guide. Another round of introductions -- a Filipino couple was actually in our same bus! -- and we were on our way (again).

Our first stop is at a lookout to view the iconic and historic Scotland's Forth Bridges -- three bridges spanning three centuries: the Forth Bridge, opened in 1890 and a UNESCO World Heritage site (voted Scotland's greatest man-made wonder in 2016); the Forth Road Bridge, opened in 1964; and the Queensferry Crossing, completed in 2017. (Not a great photo below - it was hard to get all 3 in a shot. That's my excuse. 😜) 

2nd Stop: The Kelpies. As we approached the site, our tour guide/driver told us a story/myth of how kelpies (shape-shifting water spirits) would charm children as these majestic white horses and then trap them and pull them into the water/river. Scary story. I couldn't believe how huge they (the sculptures, not the spirits) are in person.

Next stop: Doune Castle... or Castle Leoch in the Outlander world.😊 Originally built in the thirteenth century, this castle has actually "starred" in a few shows/movies -- aside from Outlander, it was used as a set for Winterfell in the Game of Thrones series, in the movie Outlaw King, and in the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The audio guide even has some spots narrated by Outlander's Jamie Fraser 😉.

Next is a quick bathroom/coffee stop at Loch Lubnaig -- the same stop on the previous tour. This time, it was on a gloomy and foggy morning so the Loch actually looked a bit different than the previous day's visit.

Next up is a quick photo stop by the side of the road to view Kilchurn Castle and Loch Awe from a distance. A bit disappointing, not because of the castle or the loch, but because we only got to view them from afar. I wish we could have gotten closer. 😞

Then a longer stop for lunch and some look-around at the charming town of Inveraray on the western shore of Loch Fyne. We had lunch at The George Hotel -- Michelle and I decided to be anti-social and had a table to ourselves 😁 ... there's only so much time we can stand being around people we don't really know 😂 and lunch time (or any meal, for that matter) was sacred. LOL!

After lunch, we walked around the town a bit and took some photos.

As we drove away from the town, we had a pretty view of the Inveraray Castle - it was either closed that day or it wasn't really part of our itinerary.

Next stop... the Rest and be Thankful Viewpoint. According to our guide, it is named as such because the climb out of the glen was so long and steep, it was customary for travelers to rest at the top and be thankful to have reached the highest point. Beautiful view from up there. (Harry seems to be enjoying the view as well)

Our last stop of the tour was the quaint wee village of Luss, on the west bank of Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond, by the way, is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. Our guide/driver played us a nice song "The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond" as we were approaching our stop. 

I really liked this village; maybe someday hopefully 🤞, I will get a chance to stay a while and visit the place properly.

Then back to Edinburgh. We had dinner at Makars Gourmet Mash Bar... great food, yum!

Scottish eggs

sticky toffee pudding

We were going to do the Ghost walking tour later that night, but we had a little time before then so we decided to do some walking on the Royal Mile before the tour started.

Edinburgh Castle

I was a tad worried about the tour -- me having a wild imagination and all -- but it wasn't too bad... I just remembered to always stay in the middle of the group in case some incorporeal being decided to make itself known to anybody lagging behind. 😨😱  And by choice, I didn't take any photos during the tour. 😁 I had no desire to inadvertently capture anything I didn't want to see. Thankfully, no nightmares later either.

All in all, a great and productive day. 

 “Never underestimate the big importance of small things.”

“You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.”

Matt Haig, The Midnight Library 

Euro trip - Nov 2019 - Part 4 (Scotland Day 2)

 19 Nov 2019 - Loch Ness, Glencoe & the Highlands tour

This tour started at 8 AM and lasted for a grand total of... 12 hours!! Lots of driving and lots of ground to cover... with sadly only so much day time to see the places we're going to see.

We started early from the condo and walked to the Rabbie's tour place. We got there with enough time to get a breakfast of sandwich and coffee... not too Scottish, I'm afraid.

We were then assigned to our tour bus - a little bus with about 16 passengers, I think. Introductions all around and then we were on our way.

There were a few places that we passed along the way (that were unfortunately not part of the tour.. nor was there enough time to stop for them) that our guide/driver pointed out to us with some tidbit of info about each one. A couple of these places were included in the tour we are taking the day after fortunately.

The Kelpies

Stirling Castle

Doune Castle

Our first official stop was Loch Lubnaig, as we were welcomed to the Scottish Highlands. It is part of the Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park. There was an interesting fact about this park relating to the US national parks that our guide mentioned but alas this is one of those things that my brain has now filed under "senior moments".

After a brief lesson on Scots Gaelic - Bens are mountains, Glens are valleys, Lochs are lakes and sea inlets - we arrive in beautiful Glen Coe. Very famous - featured in movies and shows like Harry Potter, Skyfall, Outlander, etc. - with an infamous history - Massacre of Glencoe.

In the same area, we made a quick stop at Loch Achtriochtan -- the name very good for expectorating if spoken in a perfect Scottish accent. 😅

Then for a wee bit longer stop at Glencoe Visitor Centre where I met two cuties whom I adopted and brought home with me, and sometimes (a lot of times) now accompany me when travelling. Meet Harry and Heilan Coo. (If you haven't figured it out [well, duh... just kidding 😝], the names are a play on what they are -- two gorgeous hairy highland cows.) 😊 

Heilan (left) and Harry (right) with a wee birdie photombomber

And then on to the farthest point in our tour - Fort Augustus where we could see the also famous Loch Ness. We originally thought we'd be able to take the cruise on the loch, but we only had an hour and we were hungry. The stomach was the lord and ruler supreme of the whole body that time (or most times, to be honest) so we decided to sit down for lunch at Bothy Restaurant and Bar. We shared a steak and a fish between the two of us and our tummies were happy, even if our hearts were a little broken (just a tiny bit) over missing the cruise.

Armed with our cameras and with a determination that only comes with a full stomach 😂, we went searching for Nessie. Regrettably though, not a tail or spike (or whatever else Nessie is supposed to have) in sight so we settled on taking photos of the good ole loch... with a little help from our two new wee friends.

On our way back to Edinburgh, we saw a field full of Harry's and Heilan's brothers and sisters so we stopped by to say hello.

We also made a quick stop at Commando Memorial. It was starting to get dark and it was very windy.

At this point, we were really losing daylight but our tour guide was able to squeeze in one more stop for one more loch - Loch Laggan Dam. 

We made one last stop at a small village for a potty break that turned out to be ice cream/coffee/tea/hot cocoa break as well. And then our tour guide/driver told us a couple of horror stories the rest of the way... I think mostly to try to keep himself awake. 😁

Finally, arrived back in Edinburgh safe and sound. Michelle and I stopped by this Christmas Market/Fair on the Princes Street Gardens to look around and watch all these crazy people on these crazy rides on a crazy cold night 😂.

After looking for places for dinner, we ended up at a place quite close to our condo - Whiski Rooms. I had the Steak and Ale Mushroom pie. It was good. I think the place offers whisky tasting but we were pretty knackered at this point, we just wanted a quick dinner before crashing into bed.

I would usually DIY tours, but in this case, the places we covered were not easily accessible by public transport and neither of us were brave enough to drive on the left side (aka wrong side) of the road; so all in all, I would say this was money well spent. But I also think, this tour would be way better in the summer... more daytime is definitely better for this.

Euro trip - Nov 2019 - Part Three (Scotland Day 1)

18 Nov 2019 - Edinburgh and Roslin (Scotland, UK)

We arrived at the Edinburgh Waverley station bright and early (~7:25 AM). As we exited the train station on Princes Street, we got our first glimpse of Edinburgh... on the right side were "big" retail stores (an Apple store right across the station entrance/exit, a McDonald's a couple of blocks down, an H&M store, etc.) but straight ahead was the towering Scott Monument, on the left side of the street was the beautiful structures of the Old Town, and sitting on top of a hill, undoubtedly difficult to miss, was the magnificent Edinburgh Castle. I breathed a long and deep sigh. It was love at first sight.

And then we had to go look for a place to store our luggage for the day since it was too early to checkin at our AirBnb place. We researched beforehand and found a bus station that had storage lockers for rent not too far (though it seemed like miles away with all the luggage we were lugging) from the train station. Our bags stored, we head on to our first destination - Rosslyn Chapel.

1. Rosslyn Chapel is located in a wee village called Roslin, located about 45-60 min from Edinburgh. We, of course, sat on the very front seats on the 2nd level of the bus for maximum viewing. 

A nice tour guide lady, who told us the tour will be in English with a Scottish accent 😄, said a few things about the history of the chapel, how the number of visitors have exponentially increased since being featured in the The Da Vinci Code (both the book and the movie), and a few other interesting details about the chapel. No cameras allowed inside, unfortunately.

We made it out just in time for the next bus to Edinburgh; unfortunately, we were waiting at the bus stop on the right side of the street so the bus simply ignored us and went on its merry way. 😬

This gave us some time to take a few pictures of the village though so... silver lining, I suppose.

2. Mums Great Comfort Food - if I remember correctly, I think we had steak pie and sausages; I was so hungry at this point, I forgot to take pictures of our food. I only managed to remember when my tummy was happily enjoying a hot cocoa.

3. Edinburgh Castle - very interesting to learn about all the history (both the good and the horrifying) of this castle. There was too much too see and we sadly only had a couple hours to see them. And we thought we might be able to come back another day on this visit (we weren't).

4. Royal Mile - walked part of the Royal Mile on our way to our next stop for some afternoon tea. Yes, I know, we'd made it a habit by then; after all, when in Rome... (or in this case, when in the UK).

5. Deacon's House Cafe - not to be mistaken with Deacon Brodies Tavern right across the street, which we had.  After the initial confusion of seeing people standing around small tables drinking beer in what we thought was a Tea place, we figured we were in the wrong place after a mere few minutes. 😅  But, fortunately at last, we were enjoying our tea, scones, and shortbread cookies soon after, forgetting any embarrassment we may have felt at the tavern. 😁

6. Calton Hill -  There were two places we were considering for sunset viewing, both highly recommended by travel sites and articles we've read - Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill -- with a difference of about 500+ feet in elevation. Arthur's Seat has bigger and better views as it is higher up. But at the end of a very long day, pragmatism reigned over ambition.... we were maybe a little lacking physiologically to manage that trek so we decided on Calton Hill. It was about 10-15 min to walk up and ended up being one of my favorite places in Edinburgh, I think.

7. Our condo - After Calton Hill, we headed back to the bus station to get our luggage back and checkin to our place. It probably would not have been such a bad walk to do all that, but with 2 weeks worth of luggage in tow, it was definitely a workout, for us at least. 

We did manage to find the place without getting lost, and a couple of nice young people did help us carry our bags up some stairs... so I really shouldn't complain too much.

The place (location and the condo itself) was actually pretty nice, it was more than enough space for 2 people and the building where the condo is overlooked the Prince Street Gardens and was right beside The Writers' Museum.

8. Royal McGregor - After having regained some strength back from our forced "workout", we went out again in search of dinner. I always try to at least sample the local/traditional dishes when travelling, so after some explaining of what this dish I wanted to try was made of to Michelle and a little convincing because of said explaining, we tried Scotland's national dish - Haggis! (if you don't know what it is, google it... it sounds fun! 😜)  

We also tried this soup with fish and potatoes in it - Cullen Skink - strange name, but it was yummy! And because we were in Scotland, we had to try some whisky. Well, I had a sip and Michelle finished the rest of the glass. 😂

Haggis tower

Cullen Skink

To end our first day in Scotland, and perhaps to help digest the haggis faster 😁, we walked on the Royal Mile a little before going back to the condo. We went past The World's End pub -- this pub was featured in Outlander and has a very interesting history. Read the sign on the photo below and be amazed. 😎