Scotland Day 8

We started the day by taking a 45 minute bus ride out of Edinburgh to visit Rosslyn Chapel. Rosslyn Chapel has magnificent architecture and history, and most recently was a major feature in the last part of Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code.

We got there just in time for the free guided tour, which I highly recommend, as the guide points out many of the interior features and mysteries of the chapel that we would've missed. And by tour, I mean everyone sits in the pews for 30 minutes and looks around as the guide gives an overview of the architecture and carvings. It seemed as though almost every carving had a some purpose or meaning (and they are still trying to figure out the hidden meaning of some features). After the Da Vinci Code came out, the chapel has attracted some crazies who believe the Holy Grail is inside the chapel (for instance, one visitor attempted to saw through the famous Apprentice Pillar believing the grail was hidden inside... of course they caught him before he could do much damage). One mystery I thought was interesting is that there are carvings of corn in the chapel. The crop was unknown in Europe at the time of the chapel's construction and was not grown in Europe until hundreds of years later. Does this mean others traveled to America before Columbus?

When we got back to Edinburgh, we did some walking around. We walked through the Princes Gardens, with views of Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile in the background:

Later in the afternoon, we walked down to the Royal Botanic Gardens:

For our last dinner in Scotland, we ate at a nice restaurant nearby our hotel, Iris. For fun afterwards we found a nearby "dive" bar called The Black Rose. We were definitely way over dressed compared to the rest of the clientele, but we didn't care, and had a great time rocking to some 80s hair band music!

Since our flight home the next day was on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we were really hoping security would be enhanced at the Edinburgh airport. Well, we obviously made it home safely, and we can't wait to travel back to Scotland again!

Scotland Day 7

The forecast for today was rain (In Scotland? ...imagine that), so it was a good opportunity to do some indoor activities. We decided to start the morning off at the National Museum of Scotland. The museum is huge and very impressive (7 stories and free of charge). You could probably spend the whole day there if you had the time.

The roof of the museum also gives you some great views of Edinburgh:

After the museum, we grabbed some lunch and checked out a few other places, like the Greyfriars Church. We also stopped in at a huge 7 story department store, Jenners. They had a gourmet food section, which had food displays representing different parts of the world. We found the "Americatessen" section to be quite comical:

In the late afternoon, we decided to do our own self-guided pub crawl. Kim had already planned a route, marking our map with POI (Pubs of Interest). I think we ended up visiting 5 or 6 pubs, getting to sample a variety of scotch and beer.



We had dinner at a French restaurant near our hotel, Cafe Rouge, which I thought had outstanding food (though the lingering affects from the pub crawl may have played a part in my glowing review).

Scotland Day 6

We started the day off by visiting Edinburgh Castle, which was right up Brian’s alley. Not only is it a historic castle that has been in use since the times of Robert the Bruce, but within the castle are three different museums chronicling Scottish military history – a.k.a., Brian heaven. Thankfully I artfully negotiated with Brian to only visit 2 of the 3 museums. Also within the castle walls are St. Margaret’s Cathedral, the oldest building in Edinburgh (c. 1300s), and the crown jewels of Scotland. Since it’s perched high up on a volcanic rock, the castle also offers good views of the city.

Here’s Brian with Mons Megs – a giant cannon that could launch cannon balls 5 kms, but required 100 men to move it.

After finishing up the castle, we strolled down the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is so-called because it is almost exactly one mile stretching between the castle and the Palace of Holyrood House, the royal family’s official residence in Scotland. Along the way are many sites such as St. Giles Cathedral, Canongate Kirk, and the new Scottish Parliament.

In the background of this pic is Arthur’s Seat, the tallest point in Edinburgh. In another artful negotiation, I convinced Brian to climb Calton Hill instead, which thankfully is only half as tall.

Calton Hill is home to many of Edinburgh’s monuments and memorials and also provides great views of the city. Here’s Brian at the Robert Burns monument.



Here’s the Nelson monument, where they still drop a ball at 1pm as a maritime clock signal.

That’s Brian way up there on the Scotland monument. A moment of hilarity ensued when Brian tried to “hop” on up. There were all these girls up on the monument, so Brian thought it would be no problem, but they had all gotten a boost. Brian made it up eventually, but the monument put up a good fight. I would have gotten pictures, but I was laughing too hard.


That evening we ate at The Witchery, a fancy restaurant at the foot of the castle. I'm not sure why it's called The Witchery, but it's located in a 16th century townhome, and it was pretty awesome inside.
After dinner, we stopped in at a pub named The Malt Shovel (great bar name). The guidebook said there'd be live folk music, but instead it was a jazzy-rock trio. Brian got a kick out of their jazz rendition of Paranoid Android by Radiohead.

Scotland Day 5

Kim: Today we left Isle of Skye to head Edinburgh.  We stopped first at Eilean Donan castle, the long-time home and residence of the McRae clan (and set of the movie Highlander).

Next we stopped at the small town of Fort Augustus, situated on the Caledonian Canal.  The canal links many of the lakes throughout Scotland, and to Brian’s excitement, one of the lakes next to Fort Augustus is Loch Ness.  He eagerly peered across the lake in search of Nessie and I had to tear him away.

Brian:  I had a brief moment of excitement when I noticed a few humps surface from the water, but after some digital enhancements of the photograph, it was clear I had not seen Nessie -

Kim: We then drove down through the Highlands, stopping at Dalwhinnie, home to Scotland’s highest whisky distillery, and the town of Pitlochry.

Here’s a picture of us with our guide Richard.

When we arrived in Edinburgh, we quickly found our B&B and then headed out for dinner.  This must have been Brian’s lucky day, because we found a Mexican restaurant right around the corner on Thistle St.  I was a little apprehensive at first because we were the only people in the place, but it quickly filled up and it turned out to be pretty good.  

Scotland - Day 4 (Isle of Skye)

Brian: We spent today visiting Isle of Skye. It was on and off rain and fog for most of the day, and the temperature changed dramatically depending on our altitude and proximity to the water, but we did have moments of clear skies and sunshine.

In the morning, we traveled north of Portree to Trotternish Ridge. The pictures below show some of the scenery.

Kim with sheep:

The Old Man of Storr (covered in fog):



Kilt Rock (a rock that looks like a kilt):

This is where we took a road over/between the high mountains in the middle of the island (mountain pass of Quiraing). It was a bit windy:

We ate lunch back in Portree, then headed to the west side of the island in the afternoon. We made a stop at a the Talisker distillary.

Kim and I did the free tasting they had. I prefered this scotch whisky to the previous whisky we had tried because it had a smokier flavor. Whisky from the Island region of Scotland tends to have a smokier flavor due to the extra use of peat when drying out the barley.

After Talisker, we made our way over to the most westerly point on the island, Neist Point. This sheep below is taking in the amazing view.

In the evening, we ate a traditional Scottish meal, featuring... Haggis! For those who don't know, Haggis is basically all of the parts of the sheep that aren't used normally in food... heart, lungs, brain, kidney, liver... you get the picture. It was actually very tasty, though I don't think we will be itching to order it every meal.

After dinner, we decided to join the locals at one of the bars in Portree to watch the big football match - Scotland vs. Lithuania. We also got to try out some of the local Isle of Skye Ales. The highlight was listening to the father next to us telling his two children (probably under 8 years old) to try not to curse too much during the match (that's Scotland for you). And for those who care, Scotland ended up winning 1 - 0, keeping their Euro Cup 2012 dreams alive!

Other notes:

• One more Braveheart inaccuracy: All of the warriors in Braveheart are wearing kilts. However, kilts weren't first worn in Scotland until around 1500, which is almost 200 years after Braveheart took place.




• We still haven't been successful in taking a decent picture of the elusive highland cow (or as we like to call them, "emo" cow. We've seen plenty of them, but we can never get the camera out in time to snap the photo. Maybe tomorrow we'll have better luck!
  



• So I've been eating black pudding almost every day (very tasty), and now Kim decides to inform me what it really is. It's blood sausage, meaning it's dried and congealed blood covering some filler, like oats. Well... it's definitely less appealing to me now, but I suppose I would still eat it (been eating it up until now without a problem).