Taking It Day By Day: Our 2nd European Vacation, 2014 Scotland

In 2014 we went back to the UK, starting in Edinburgh and then flew out of London. We landed in Edinburgh the day they announced that Scotland would stay in the UK and not secede. Our flight times got changed a few days before we left, and instead of landing at 10am we landed at 5am. This was problematic for a few reasons, the main one being that neither of us slept much on the flight and because of the vote there were no rooms in the hotel for us to check into early! We dropped our bags off and sought out caffeine. The first day we did a walking tour of the city, then crashed for a much needed nap, afterwards we ate some food at Deacon Brodies Tavern I got Spencer to try some Haggis, surprisingly did not hate it, although he said he was not a fan of the texture! We made our first stop of several into the Bow Bar, a fantastic tiny little bar that was distinctly not touristy, but was so close to the touristy part of town that I was easy for us to get to it. After the Bow Bar we decided to find Brew Dog, we got minorly lost if I remember correctly and had some additional time to wander the streets! After that we crashed and boy did we enjoy our sleep!

Before our flights, look how awake we are!

6am.....we needed the caffeine!

I told Spencer I was going to drop him off, he didn't seem like he would fight me on it!

The next day we woke up and started our day with a tour of the castle. There was a wedding while we were there, it was very cool to see the wedding procession, the chapel they got married in reminded me of the chapel on Bakers Campus based on the size. This one is considerably older than the one removed from Sprokton England and shipped to Baker though. We did the audio tour of the castle while we were there, saw the crown jewels and the "stone of destiny" which our tour guide the day before had told us about with great fan fare.

After the castle tour we had lunch and then went on to the Scotch Whisky Experience. I did this back in 2004 when I studied abroad. The only thing I remembered from it that time was that we were frozen and as soon as they gave us the sample of scotch we all downed it immediately hoping it would help warm us up! There is a little ride at the beginning that takes you through the history of the drink, then after you get some more info on the different regions of scotch. We sampled all the regions after that to discover which region we preferred. For not thinking I liked Scotch at all I discovered I really liked the Speyside region, Spencer preferred the Highlands.

In order to get a bit outside our walking distance we bought tickets to the Hop On Hop Off bus and took a turn around the city. That night we did a ghost tour of the city, we visited the South Bridge Vaults, they were designed to hold luxury goods but they leaked so badly that they were abandoned. After that they became home to the marginalized members of society, who were routintly abducted to be dissected for medical practice. After that we went to the Black Mausoleum, part of the first concentration camp in Europe for the Covenanters. The spot has had significant paranormal activity since 1998, although we didn't see anything strange while we were there.

a cannon overlooking the view from the castle during our tour

the main tourist drag in Edinburgh

a taster of scotch from the tour we did, in the background is one of the schools used in Harry Potter filming, OMG I love Harry Potter

A small snippet of the worlds largest private scotch collection

Spence putting all the knowledge acquired during the tour to good use

at the Black Mausoleum, we didn't actually see anything paranormal, but its better to be prepared right?

During our tour of Edinburgh Castle

The next day was our "active" day. We decided to hike up Arthurs Seat first thing in the morning. Now, this was not something we'd officially decided on doing prior to getting to Edinburgh, so I didn't bring any good footwear for this.....so I did the hike in my Toms...with coffee in my hand. Really did not think this whole thing through. There were parts of the hike that I really wanted to say screw it and give up, I'm very glad we didn't though, the views from the top of the hike were fantastic! After the hike we went back down and took the Hop On Hop Off bus over to Scot's monument and went to the top (gotta love us and our need to get the highest views). It was a very tight squeeze at the top, but the views were great!

Our next stop was at Mary King's Close. We did the underground tour first, it was fantastic to see how different Edinburgh was several hundred years ago. The idea that the streets were several inches or more thick with sewage and the smell that would have accompanied it is hard to reconcile with the Edinburgh of today! Our guide for that portion of the tour was fantastic, very engaged in the history and gave us a lot of really cool information. The second part of the tour was above ground and frankly, not something I'd consider worth it. It was a lot of the same information we'd gotten on our free city tour, and the guide for this portion would randomly trail off, kept checking his (not period accurate) watch. We lost 6 people and he didn't notice. We ran into some of the people we saw on our hike up Arthurs Seat who commented on my coffee hike earlier in the day.

During our climb up Arthurs Seat

Spence is at the VERY top!

OMG we both made it! despite the lack of appropriate footwear on my part....

First view of Scott's Monument

Yup, we climbed it

We took the red route to the top

Our last day in Scotland we did a day trip with Rabbies. This is the itinerary from their website

"Depart Edinburgh at 09.00 and travel north over the Forth Road Bridge, passing one of Scotland's great engineering wonders - the Forth Rail Bridge. Continuing north into the Kingdom of Fife you pass Loch Leven castle where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned in 1567 and forced to abdicate from the throne.

Further on you will also pass Perth, the medieval capital of Scotland, before crossing the Highland Boundary Fault line, and the point where the scenery changes from the rolling farmland of the Lowlands to the forested hills and mountains of the Scottish Highlands. Surrounded by this beautiful scenery and on the banks of the River Tay is the Cathedral town of Dunkeld, your first stop of the day. Dunkeld was for many centuries the capital of the Christian Celtic Church, and its 13th century Cathedral reflects the once great importance of this quaint Highland village.

At Dunkeld, one of my favorite pics of us on this trip

The church at Dunkeld, its seen better days but is still amazing

I'm such a sucker for stained glass

From Dunkeld it's a short drive to the Hermitage, a fantastic woodland walk leading up to the Black Linn Falls where the River Braan cascades into a narrow gorge. Surrounded by some of Scotland's tallest trees and changing spectacularly in appearance throughout the seasons it's a great place at any time of year. You may even have the chance to see the spectacular sight of Salmon attempting to leap up the falls and on towards their spawning grounds.

We had such a great time at this stop, the falls were amazing and so was the hiking.

Leaving the Hermitage you follow the wide valley of the River Tay towards the Victorian resort town of Pitlochry. You will spend around 1 hour here and you can visit the many great shops and restaurants or maybe even take a walk down towards Loch Faskally.

After lunch you take a scenic drive through the mountains of Highland Perthshire, first crossing over the Pass of Killiecrankie before a short stop at the Queen's View overlooking Loch Tummel. On a clear day the view here is stunning, looking over to the unmistakable peak of Schiehallion and beyond to the mountains of Glencoe.

Continuing alongside Loch Tummel you then head over the hills into the ancient lands of Breadalbane, or the ‘High Country’ surrounding Loch Tay. You will make a stop at the waterside village of Kenmore with a chance to walk along the shores of the loch and enjoy the views to the dramatic bulk of Ben Lawers rising high above the water.

From here you travel the short distance to the town of Aberfeldy and Dewars Whisky distillery, where you can discover the secret of how Scotland's national drink is made. No visit to Scotland is complete without sampling a 'wee dram' and you will get the chance to taste some of the finished product. Known in the Gaelic as Uisge Beatha (or 'water of life') whisky has been produced for centuries in Scotland and the art is now close to perfection. From here the tour returns you to the lowlands and Edinburgh. "

This was Spencers favorite part of the day, the part w booze. He got to try a Scotch that was out of this world fantastic!

This day trip was fantastic! It was a lot of sitting on the bus, but we knew we were in for that before hand, and for us not having to be in charge of the day was a nice break. We saw some parts of the country we wouldn't have on our own and felt it was very much worth the money spent.

After the trip we walked down the way and went to a speakeasy Spencer read about online. It was on his "must" list for the city and it was a great way to close out the first half of the trip. Its designed to look like an old barber shop and the door is disguised like a bookshelf, very cloak and dagger!