Stunning Scotland

Scotland

Edinburgh

Our first taste of Scotland was in Edinburgh. We caught the train up from Newcastle after spending the morning checking out the castle and arrived in Edinburgh in the afternoon. We had the details of a bed and breakfast that we could stay in so we worked out how to catch the bus from the train station into the neighborhood of the B&B. We checked into the B&B and headed back out into town, catching the bus again.

There are two things that immediately stand out in Edinburgh – the Scots Monument

And the castle. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the castle it was dark. But I think it looks medieval in the dark, and perhaps more impressive than it would in the daylight.

After having now mastered the Edinburgh public buses and having a huge Scottish breakfast we caught the bus from the very, very nice B&B we were staying in back to the train station. We wanted to see as much of the highlands as we could so we caught a train up to Aberdeen and then on to Inverness.

Inverness

Inverness is a smaller city than Edinburgh, but it also has its own castle, of course.

The B&B we were staying in was in easy (well easy compared to some of the others) walking distance of the train station – there was, however, the matter of a few steps to climb with our bags, but we made it.

As we were getting ready for bed snow started gently falling, and by the next morning a thick white blanket covered the city.

We lugged our bags back down to the train station and put them in baggage storage for the morning because we had an excursion to go on – we were off to see Loch Ness.

We were very glad to see that the bus we needed to catch was one of the ones that were still running (the snow was causing a lot of road closers), so we got on for the half-an-hour ride to Urquhart Castle passing through some extremely pretty scenery.

Urquhart Castle (pronounced erk-heart) is only ruins now, but it is one of the few places on the banks of Loch Ness easily accessible by public bus and has a very nice visitors information centre.

When we arrived, the castle ruins were closed due to the snow, which was much thicker than it had been in town so we spent time playing in the snow, taking photos, and then going through the displays and watching the video at the visitors centre. Then, 15 minutes before we had to leave, half the castle grounds were opened as they had managed to clear the snow off the paths so we got to have a closer look before we had to go.

We hurried back up to the bus stop and stood there waiting for a few minutes before watching the bus that was meant to take us back to Inverness sail straight past us without stopping. Thankfully, there was another bus scheduled for 20 minutes later and we managed to wave it down and get back to Inverness.

Glasgow

Our train to Glasgow was considerably delayed because of the snow and it was full so we were unable to sit in first class (we have first class tickets), but we did eventually make it into Glasgow. It was almost dark when we arrived so we went straight to the B&B – which turned out to be quite a long walk – and checked in. We left again straight after and went into the city to have a look around. We were intrigued that Glasgow doesn’t have a castle looming over the city.

We eventually returned to our room to start a rather long wrestle with my bag as the handle that extends so that you can pull it along behind you would no longer retract. The bag and I have now come to a compromise on the situation.

The next morning when we got up we went down to the dining hall for breakfast and, seeing the cereal and toast, we assumed we were simply getting a continental breakfast and began to tuck in. But then, after cornflakes and toast, a full Scottish breakfast was placed in front of us so we were very full when we left.

We then started the trek back to the train station and caught the train to, very sadly, leave Scotland.