Travelogue: Scotland
A huge shout out to Airbnb and Norwegian Air for making this trip cheaper than going to Devner! Norwegian’s flights out of Newburgh, NY are ridiculously inexpensive, IF you’re willing to travel light and skip the extras, which we definitely were for the chance to go.
I might have actually picked a warmer spot, but my very dear friend Tara is living abroad with her seven kids for two years and suggested we meet up in Scotland. We love traveling, but love it even more with friends, so it felt like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.
We brought half the clothes we needed and stayed in places with washing machines. We brought some screens and a few legos and that was basically it. Each person had a backpack and if it didn’t fit it didn’t go. It turned out to save us in baggage fees and also car rental fees when our car ended up being some kind of micro-mini van with no space for luggage.
A friend of a friend had suggested a circular route around Scotland which involved staying in 5 different places over 10 nights and visiting 10 different towns and cities. It was one of those need a vacation from your vacation kind of vacations, plus five hours of jetlag. Slowly, very slowly our mojo is coming back.
The first two nights we stayed in Edinburgh, which is best known for its gigantic beautifully maintained castle, scary driving and amazing transit system. Roads are smaller in Scotland. For example, what we would call a one lane road here is a two lane road there that people can park on – on both sides. The first day we parked in a garage and it was a huge mistake. Then we realized that the buses run everywhere, all the time and they have an app that makes it fool proof. It was perfect for jet lagged Americans. Especially ones that manage to somehow lose their car.
Our trip to Edinburgh Castle was followed by a trip to the National Museum of Scotland.
And even though it was a little bit of a touristy thing, we did stop by Camera Obscura on the Royal Mile which is like the Ripley’s Believe It or Not of optical illusions. We needed a place where our kids could run around and not be shushed. 🙂 Interestingly, it was started in Edinburgh by a Scottish woman in the 1850s.
We didn’t expect the food in Scotland to be amazing… apparently we forgot it was in Europe. Even though the UK isn’t known for its culinary sensibilities, the global culture still meant the selection of restaurants was astounding. Even in the smallest of places where we’d have vending machines they’d have wood fired pizza. Which is all to say that we ended up eating out A LOT more than we thought we would, and it was fabulous.
(Their bagels weren’t amazing. And apparently Mexican food hasn’t really made its way over to Scotland either).
Next we went to Falkirk, which is known for its wheel. When canals went out of vogue some were filled in and houses were built on top. Later as a rejuvination project, they wanted to reinstate the canals but couldn’t go through the previous route. So they built a wheel which is like an elevator for boats. It uses counterbalancing to be extremely energy efficient. It connects the two canal sections and will lift or lower boats 79 feet.
(photo from Wikipedia).
Falkirk is also known for its HUGE Kelpie Heads.
They weren’t as interesting as we thought they might be for the kids, who were a little done with sight seeing for the day. There was an amazing playground a “wee bit” down the road… if you’re Scottish. If you’re American it was about a mile away. I’m not totally sure we ever adjusted to walking distances.
One of our very favorite spots was the Wallace Monument. They were really good about a balanced history of who he really was and what he did and didn’t accomplish. The actors in costume were also a great touch.
We also stopped by Doune Castle where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed.
After that we went through Loch Lommond and the Trossachs National Park on our way to the Western coastal town of Oban. We went on a difficult but breath taking 3 mile hike that involved a lot of carrying and just about made me pass out, but then we had ice cream so it was okay.
Some of us felt inspired to do hiking of the more hard core variety.
Phew! And that was half of the trip… installment 2 to come!
