Great Britain July 2019 (part 2)
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The day after our Cambridge trip, we took very pleasant train trip up to Edinburgh and the second part of our trip. For this part of the trip, Anne Marie at Across the Pond arranged logistics after Sarah gave her an overview of our interests. Living as close as we do to an Amtrak station, we'd love to see Amtrak work this smoothly. (We've been train fans for a while — Robert, Smom and Pop Pop from a 2005 train trip to New Jersey.) |
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The Lateral City Apartment was in a great location with fabulous views; we really enjoyed the porch. With the relaxing train ride being less than five hours, we decided to head up the hill to the Edinburgh Castle after checking in and dropping off our stuff. This was more traditional Scotish weather, but the rain was only briefly heavy. |
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| These might look familiar. Here is a similar photo from 2016. No need for a sweatshirt (or rain coat) on this trip when the rain wasn't actively falling. |
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| Dungeons are never inviting. Especially when they are several hundred years old. |
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We found a nice place for dinner after the Castle tour. And I took advantage of their option of a whisky flight to go with my Haggis. I still like my 10 year old Laphroaig. With all the running around, it was kind of a late dinner. It turns out that Edinburgh has a 9pm limit on underage patrons in pubs. Robert was thrilled to have the waitress kick him out of the pub! |
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| We returned to the apartment and its fun porch and watched dusk settle in where the construction cranes seemed to turn into permanent fireworks in the fog. |
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| The next day, Saturday, we met Peter Hamilton in the lobby. He was our guide for a morning of walking around Edinburgh. We learned more about the history and architecture; old town, new town and how they have changed from the Edinburgh native's perspective. |
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| Peter wound up our walk at Holyroodhouse where we got a snack before the taking the tour. Note the weather's quick change. There were a couple minutes of heavy rain on our walk (we hung out under some trees in one of the many courtyards) and then the clouds lifted and it was spectacularly clear. |
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| With that weather and being so close, we had to climb Arthur's Seat and take in the views from that vantage point: the city, the bay, the firth, the castle. |
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| The Baked Potato looks a lot like the place I visited with my parents in 1976. Carolee, who was living there at the time, thinks this is actually a different place. Robert brought a potato for desert back to the apartment. Unfortunately, when we realized how good they were, it was too late to pick up some for the next day's breakfast. |
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On the porch, as the sun set, we could hear the Proclaimers concert from the esplanade in front of the Castle. Another great day full of memories. We climbed down the stairs from the apartment the next morning to pick up our rental car. And there were a lot of stairs. |
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| Getting out of Edinburgh was not too bad; Sarah adapts to wrong-side-of-the-road driving well. And the GPS that came with the car was pretty good. There was that first turn though, that put us onto the Royal Mile, headed for the Edinburgh Castle. After that, it was all good. We motored up to Sterling Castle as our first stop on the way north. |
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We ended up in Aviemore, a small town in the Cairngorms National Park. The next day was momentous: Robert's birthday! We had a horseback trek lined up but it turned out to be for more experienced riders than either Robert or I. Sarah enjoyed the trek, Robert and I found the go-kart track... |
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After more go-karting (with Sarah this time), we tried the Happy Haggis for lunch, which was great. First they had haggis, a request from Robert for his birthday (he's become quite the fan). Then, when they heard it was his birthday, they brought out the banner and even added some baloons. After lunch, Sarah found a beautiful trail around a loch which with a small stone castle on an island. It was a pretty walk, and a chance to cool off in the water (it didn't take long). |
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| That night we had a slightly more formal birthday dinner, complete with birthday sorbet. And Robert got a couple presents we smuggled into the restaurant (including a can of haggis for a pending haggis party back home). |
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| The next day, we were back in car, driving further north to Bridge of Forss. We went through Inverness before getting onto the smaller roads again with elk and sheep. |
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| The River Forss is quiet pretty. After checking in, we took a hike (again in spectacular weather) to St. Mary's Chapel which is on the northern coast of Scotland. What better place to step out into the North Atlantic? |
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While we waited for our dinner table, Robert asked what sodas they had. The proprietress told him to go check the fridge behind the bar: Busted! We got up and out early the next day, Wednesday, to catch the Scrabster to Stromness ferry. It was about 90 minutes and, fortunately for us, did not live up to the rough seas reputation. |
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| We drove up to Skara Brae first to look at one of the oldest sites on the island: dating back to about 3500 BC. The have recreated one of the dwellings which gave us a break during the more Scottish weather. Again, the heavy rain was pretty brief. |
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| In the time it took us to drive on to the Brough of Birsay, the rain had moved out and it was bright and sunny again. Again, perfect for getting toes into the North Atlantic. This turned out to be a favorite place of the trip. While the tide was in and we couldn't get to the island, the tidal pools were great fun. |
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We made a quick stop in Birsay and discovered the Earl's Palace. For those few who are familiar with The Fourth Tower of Inverness, this sign about the three (or was it four?) towers will be intriguing. Next stop on our Orkney Island excursion were the Standing Stones of Stennis and then the Ring of Brodgar. Trivia from the Standing Stones: a tenant farmer was getting ready to dynamite one of them to make the land easier to plant. He was disuaded and the site shifted to preservation rather than active agriculture. |
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| From there, we checked into our Kirkwall hotel, then drove down to the Churchill Barriers and the Italian Chapel, built by Italian POWs during WW II. |
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| This time, Sarah and Robert decided to go all in: they took the North Atlantic plunge! Someone had to record it for posterity (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it). |
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| More fun signs we found walking around Kirkwall after dinner that night. |
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| We decided to head for the Brough of Birsay earlier the next day to catch the low tide. It was well worth it. Not being sure how fast the tide would come in, we took advantage of the open causeway to cross to the island first. There we saw ruins of a viking village in addition to the lighthouse and puffin rookery on the cliffs. |
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| Fun with road signs on our way to The Gloup. Sarah was disappointed that we could not get down to sea level at the mouth of the gloup (which is a cave that has had the roof collapse). But it was still very cool to see, as was the rocky coastline. |
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| From there, we headed back to Stromness for an afternoon ferry back to Scrabster. The weather was even better for our return trip! The Old Man of Hoy was beautiful in the afternoon light. |
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| Our hotel in Brora had a putting green out front. That made for lots of after dinner fun (and the fact that it was light until 10:30). |
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| The next day, our last full day in Scotland, was anohter beauty. We took a walk on the beach by the hotel before loading up the car for the drive to Aberdeen. On the way we made a stop at Castle Urquhart (and a final chance to get feet wet in a Scottish loch — no sign of Nessie). |
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| Aberdeen seemed very urban after our time on Orkney. The flight home, via Dublin, was uneventful and we were happy to see our cats, home and beds again. |
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Vacation notes:
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