adventure_al said:
Can't believe I almost missed this thread.
I'm your man, Scottish through and through! any questions give me a shout!
Loads to see in Edinburgh. Really nice city but it is geared for tourists. The likes of the castle is well worth a look though.
Thanks for all your recommendations, adventure al, but unfortunately I had already left! I remember you posted a picture of yourself kilted up (w/sporran?) but hadn?t seen you post in awhile & didn?t know if you were still on here. Cool to hear from a true Scotsman!
The trip was a memorable one, for it began wonderfully but ended up in airport HELL due mainly to the UK?s worst snowstorm in 18 years! My girlfriend & I visited Edinburgh and stayed with a friend who lives in a small, village south of there called, Innerleithen (formerly St. Ronan?s Wells ? Ivanhoe?s, Sir Walter Scott, wrote a book about it).
Edinburgh was amazing but we only had 1 day so didn?t explore it too much apart from the castle and the Royal Mile. I LOVED the castle, not only for its structure but also because of its museums. The National Army Museum and the one for the Royal Scots Dragoons were awesome (the Royal Scots Greys museum was closed!) The highlight for me was seeing one of my favourite military paintings; the Cameron Highlanders' famous charge at Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt, 1882. I didn?t even know it was there...just walked into the room and POW ? there it was! We also visited the Crown Jewels vault which houses the
Stone of Destiny...
There is Scottish blood in me so I tried looking for our family tartan in some of the shops, to no avail. Even the big one right by the castle didn?t have it but I did buy a book on my clan. Funnily enough, we checked out the Museum of Childhood on the Royal Mile (as, unknowingly, adventure al suggested). There were 2 or 3 toys in there that I actually had! Admission was free but I gave a donation. We didn?t get to play Pale Horse?s ?pub golf? game but bought a bottle of Famous Grouse whiskey instead. I wanted to do the Dungeon Tour but my girlfriend wasn?t keen on it. Next time...
Driving around the Scottish Borders was worth it for the geography and visiting the small towns scattered about. ?The rolling hills? are real. We saw more sheep than one could count. Sheep, sheep, sheep everywhere! Also saw a peregrine falcon, some Shetland ponies and almost drove over some road-crossing pheasants twice! I had some McSween?s haggis at a small restaurant in Peebles (connection with John Buchan, authour of ?The 39 Steps?) and took a stroll through Moffat (birthplace of Chief Marshal Dowding, commander of the RAF during the Battle of Britain). We also hiked up to the top of Grey Mare?s Tail, which is a waterfall near the village of Llandwrst. It was freaking cold that day!
The main pub (Corner Pub) in Innerleithen is probably the friendliest in the world. One of the barmaids even bought me something I had seen in a shop window but couldn?t get because the store was closed. Very friendly & generous deed.
One thing I oblivious to was the deal with Scottish currency. I had no idea you guys have your own money and, on top of that, from 3 different banks!?!
MONDAY morning was leaving day and it was a disaster. As mentioned above, their worst snowstorm in 18 years! In Canada we have heated runways so I was flabbergasted that a few inches of snow
paralyzed most of southeastern UK! After
10 hrs. of delays our flight was
cancelled with the next seats available on
FRIDAY! We booked a new flight on another airline but had to transfer at London?s Gatwick. As we approached, the plane was forced to land at Southampton instead because some hydraulic fluid had spilled onto the main runway at Gatwick so we had to wait hours before it was cleaned up! After all that, our luggage didn?t arrive in Geneva. By the time we got home it was 11:00 PM. Door-to-door in took
15 HOURS to get from Scotland to Switzerland! (Not to mention 2 days late.)
Still, I did enjoy myself and tried to make the best of the last bit. Edinburgh is the highest northern latitude I?ve been to and would like to go farther to check out the Orkneys and Skara Brae. (Indy is teaching his class about Skara Brae in ?Skull?! Ha ha.) Now I can chalk Scotland down as #13 on my list of countries visited. Beautiful country. Got some good photos, too.
Again, adventure al, thanks for your replies.