Ireland/Scotland, Day 11: Edinburgh

For our last day, we had a hefty breakfast at the hotel, then walked around the old town yet again. On the way to other things, we stumbled upon Victoria Street, allegedly JK Rowling's inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter...

Victoria Street

Then we visited Greyfriar's Kirkyard, a really cool old cemetery.

Greyfriar's Kirkyard

I thought it was fun to just walk around in, but the book said that some of the names also inspired characters or families in Harry Potter.

We were quickly running out of room in our suitcases, so I dropped off a book I'd finished on the trip at a Little Free Library, then we headed in the National Museum of Scotland. The artifacts told us a lot about how the Scottish clans and tribes lived for centuries, but the history went up right to the present, which was neat. The museum itself is organized in a kind of bonkers fashion, so prepare to get lost.

Next up, the big kahuna: Edinburgh Castle!

Edinburgh Castle

Word to the wise, book your trip online early. If you get a QR code ticket in your inbox, just go right to the people checking tickets in the line, don't stop at the booth. The machines don't work and we ended up frustrating ourselves.

The castle tour was really cool, especially the views, crown jewels, and the many layers of castle battlements. So much history happened in the walls. I didn't realize how much was recent, too - like a lot of Edinburgh, parts date to the 1800s but look much older.

After the castle, we went across the river for a beer at the Guilford Arms, a fun little bar where we grabbed some local beers. It was recommended by the book, and the decor gave plenty to look at.

We had been recommended to Dishoom, a tasty chain of Indian restaurants with a location in Edinburgh. We got a smattering of dishes and were extremely happy with our picks. 

I think dinner was at something like 3:15 p.m., so we realized we had some time to kill before going back to the hotel to chill. We walked Prince's Park and then stopped in the National Gallery. There, Dave found yet another surprise Vermeer on the trip (I don't think he had seen this one, though) and I saw the iconic stag painting in situ:

The National Gallery was really impressive; we tried to focus on the Scottish paintings, and I'm sure we didn't see most of the museum in the time that we had. 

The gift shop was super neat, with yet more textiles that made me drool. The whole trip was full of such things, which is helping give me inspiration for some projects at home. Right now I have a lot of yarn and have cast on some sweater projects that aren't inspiring me, so it was nice to be somewhere with a vibrant textile culture to get some inspiration.

Scarves at the National Gallery gift shop

And that's that - our Scottish trip came to a close! We loved both Scotland and Ireland and would definitely go back; next time we'd spend more time on Islay and in Glasgow, and I'd love to see Balmoral and all the wild beauty up there. Of course, we made a list of movies set in Scotland, most of which are in the Highlands, so we have that to look forward to. 

No more trips scheduled for the rest of the year right now, but we're thinking of going somewhere relaxing and warm in February. This was kind of a "go, go, go" trip, I'd like to just relax somewhere, maybe at a resort with one good excursion per day.

Ireland/Scotland, Day 10: Edinburgh

For our first full day in Edinburgh, we focused on some of the big-ticket tourist items from the guidebook, including St. Giles Cathedral...

St. Giles Cathedral

And Glastone's Land, which is an old home / business building that has been preserved as a way to show how people lived in the 1500s to the 1800s. I was glad we started with this, as it showed a lot of general Edinburgh history.

We needed to get some Swatch watches repaired, so Dave and I visited the Swatch store, where we not only got those watches fixed, but Dave got a beautiful new Swatch. The Edinburgh Swatch was cute, but not cute enough for me to spring for it.

We enjoyed lunch at Whiski Rooms, which had a nice fish and chips, and more whiskies for Dave to sample. 

After lunch, we went down to Dovecot Studios, a weaving and fiber arts cooperative (the rainbow spiral above right is from a stairwell).

Dovecot Studios

The main exhibition room had beautiful textiles on view, plus you got to look down at weavers making beautiful things.

A textile at Dovecot Studios

Their gift shop is super cute, too, even if you don't want to look at the exhibitions.

Then we walked over to Parliament, where we took a tour, and we were not able to take a tour of the Palace of Holyroodhouse because there was a royal visit or something (I guess that happens when you're in the UK!). So we hiked up the trail to Arthur's Seat. Although we didn't go all the way up to the crazy high part, the part we did complete was fun and we had very nice views of the city.

Hiking up to Arthur's Seat

As we were descending from Arthur's Seat, chilly air and mist blew in, obscuring everything. Glad we got our photos when it was sunny and clear!

We stopped for a few beer samples at Holyrood 9A, which had a nice selection from all over Scotland. 

On our way back to the hotel to change before dinner, a shop caught my eye: Scottish Textiles Showcase. I was going to buy a beautiful woven zip bag and some yarn, and then saw the most beautiful coat in the whole world, Harris Tweed and A-line. It was expensive and I wasn't sure how I was going to fit it in the bag, but I couldn't not buy it. And luckily I had bought a lot of goodwill with Dave with all the scotch.

We had dinner at Wedgewood the Restaurant, which has a tasting menu, but we weren't feeling up to it after really going to town on breakfast and lunch. One of our waitresses was American and we asked her a lot of questions about how to emigrate...you know, for a friend...

Ireland/Scotland, Day 9: Edinburgh

After another great breakfast at our B&B on Skye (and can I just say how nice it was to stay at a place for more than one day?), we started our long drive to Edinburgh.

On the way, we stopped at the Dalwhinnie Distillery, which Dave was excited about because it was the first Scottish whisky that he truly appreciated. It's not super peaty, but it's a little more approachable. 

Before dropping off the rental car, we stopped at the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is in the northeast of Edinburgh. 

If you've seen "The Crown," you know that the yacht was taken out of commission in the 1990s as austerity measures forced the royal family to give it up when it couldn't be reserviced. 

What I didn't know is that now you can tour it!

At right is a room where the royal family liked to lounge and relax, right near a deck that provided an open space for being together. Everything was a little more cramped than I expected, but then again, it is a boat.

Of course, there are spaces on the boat designed for large state dinners and entertaining, where many famous people enjoyed meals, receptions, and dancing. 

Apparently now regular people can also rent out this space for weddings and other stuff. Not sure how Queen Elizabeth felt (or would feel) about that. There were nice photos of Charles coming back to the boat for a reunion with some of the old staff members. Obviously this was a special place with positive memories for all of them.

For dinner, we hit Timberyard, a Michelin star restaurant in Edinburgh. I tried my first tripe, and the booze pairing was very nice. I decided to splurge, since now I could enjoy as much as I wanted, not having to drive! Dave thought I got pretty funny.

On first glance, Edinburgh reminded me of Prague and Salzburg, what with the medieval streets and fortress at the pinnacle. We stayed near the downtown and turned in early, getting ready for the next two days - the last destination of the trip.

Ireland/Scotland, Day 8: Isle of Skye

On Skye, we stayed at the Homeleigh B&B; it was very comfortable, affordable, and had an absolutely delightful breakfast. Skye is definitely bigger than I thought, though, and it was pretty far away from a lot of the stuff we wanted to do. Oh well! 

We did take a nice walk in the morning and met yet more sheep...

Skye sheep

First stop (after breakfast and the sheep) was a whisky tour and tasting for Dave at Torabhaig ("Tor-Veg") Distillery, one of the newer distilleries in Scotland. It was a small shop, and he was happy he did a tour here rather than one of the bigger shops. We learned about Scotch making and also the Viking-related history of the area. 

Next up was Shilasdair yarn shop, a few minutes north of Portree. These completely gorgeous yarns are all of Scottish origin and from natural dyes. The photo doesn't do it justice, but you can see how they match each other with the natural colorways.

Natural dyed yarn at Shilasdair Shop

Next we hiked the Old Man of Storr, a trail that goes right up a mountain to some cool rock formations at the top. As usual, Dave was there for the view, but I was there for the little things along the way.

Violets

The views were nice though.

Old Man of Storr, Skye

The "old man" is at left, and you can see the scale by Dave standing to the right. He's tiny!

Before dinner (another reservation! word to the wise!), we zipped over to Talisker Distillery, which was Dave's second favorite whisky on the trip. It's not a brand I've seen a lot, but Dave knew it. 

Then back to Portree for dinner at Scorrybreac, a restaurant probably too nice for the way we were looking and smelling after our hike, but oh well. It was tasty and I recommend it.

Allegedly there is a hike to a seal island not far from the ferry pier, which was near the B&B, but we couldn't find it. Instead, we walked up the pier, where we found these fun signs. Might be something to put on the wall.

Sign on Skye pier

Ireland/Scotland, Day 7: Glencoe, Skye

We woke up near Glencoe and immediately did two short hikes, both of which were amazing:

Glencoe hike

One included a down and back trail by a creek, and the other was near the Glencoe visitor's center. Both included excellent moss also:

Thick moss!!

I got my entire fist into this moss! It was fabulous! I wanted to take it home with me, but alas, I could not.

Glencoe hike #2

Hike #2 had a lot more pine trees, and the visitor's center noted why the highlands are so bald - locals were cutting down the trees for centuries, and now there is nothing left. (Kind of reminded me of Iceland.) In a lot of areas, they are starting to plant more trees to bring back the landscape and wildlife.

Dave realized that we were not far from Castle Stalker, which featured as Castle Aargh!, where they are led to the Holy Grail in the Monty Python movie. It has an interesting history, including being lost in a drunken gambling bet by a local clan.

Castle Stalker

We did another hike in Invergarry that I didn't take any pictures on, but it was also fabulously mossy. Obviously.

On our way to the Isle of Skye, we also stopped to snap a photo of Eilean Donan Castle, which is also on an island, but at least this one has a bridge.

Eilean Donan Castle

Speaking of islands and bridges, we were headed to the Isle of Skye, which is reachable by ferry or bridge, and we picked bridge this time.

We were advised to book dinner tables at Skye in advance "or risk being disappointed." Thus it was that we were able to enjoy a tasty dinner at Dulse & Brose in Portree. Lots of fresh, local ingredients; I had fish & chips.

Our book recommends the ride from Broadford to Elgol, so we hit it at the magic hour.

Gorgeous stone wall on Skye

It really was a very nice ride, but I'm not sure that it was more beautiful than other rides we'd taken in Connemara or the Highlands. But it was very nice.

More gorse, of course

Ireland/Scotland, Day 6: Glasgow, Oban

We woke up in Glasgow and walked around exploring - it reminded me of Chicago and I'd love to go back!

We visited Glasgow Cathedral, which had beautiful stone arches and morning light. The grave of St. Mungo is in the lower level; Harry Potter readers will note that name!

After the cathedral, we wanted to take a spin past the Lord Wellington statue in front of the Gallery of Modern Art, which is a cheeky little piece of classical-turned-modern art. The cone comes on, the cone goes off (but lately it seems to be on). He is sassy! The gallery was neat to run through, too, with lots of glass to ogle.

Next, we took our rental car out of town to Oban, where we ate at the tasty seafood shack (literally called "Green Shack" on a lot of guides and Google Maps) and got Dave more whisky tastings at Oban Distillery. My friend had recently been to Oban and found some yarn bombs, but I didn't find them.

Check out the neat moss that I found on the bay walls in Oban - love the different stripes and colors!

We continued into the highlands, where we got dinner and ciders at Clachaig Inn in Glencoe. You can stay there, too, but we didn't. Dave got his first haggis there, and I got vegetarian haggis, which was delightful. 

Driving through Glencoe and the Highlands was stunning; I'll have more photos tomorrow from the hike. It was hard to drive around when I wanted to look at it all!

Ireland/Scotland, Day 5: Islay

On this morning, we caught the ferry from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland, to Port Ellen, Islay (pr.: "eye-la"), Scotland. The company we used is Kintyre Express, which was sorta difficult to find, but we found it, and we managed to get about halfway before one of the boat motors went kaput!! We were adrift in the ocean for a minute before they got one of them going again and we made it the rest of the way. Phew! For a minute, I thought Dave wouldn't get his scotch.

We went to Islay so that Dave could try his beloved scotches in their native habitat. There are 14 distilleries all over the island (with another one or two being built), but we were only able to rent a bike this time rather than a car, so we hit up the three on the coast - Laphroaig, Lagavulin, and Ardbeg.

We picked up our e-bikes (smart with all the hills) from Islay E-Wheels, right in Port Ellen.

Port Ellen, Islay, Scotland

We spun through town and up on the bike path that links the three distilleries, with lots of beautiful views, as well as new cow and sheep friends.

Islay cows

We hit up Ardbeg first, thinking that we should go farthest and then inward. Dave had a lot of scotch drinking to do, you see, and becoming more inebriated with each stop, it was important to close the distance.

Dave got about five tasters at Ardbeg, then we tried to get into Lagavulin and had to come back because a big party was taking up the tasting room (word to the wise, book a tour in advance for any of these, but especially Lagavulin, if you want to do that). 

So instead, we went to Laphroaig, where we were really impressed with the special whiskies only available there, as well as the guest experience with free water, tea, and coffee.

Dave isn't normally a giddy kind of guy, but he was pretty giddy at this point.

The sheep were really everywhere, and very cute - we thought someday we'd open a bed and breakfast on Islay, give whisky recommendations, and bake tasty scones for visitors.

Happy Islay sheep

Oh, and speaking of wildlife, Laphroaig had some adorable bunnies hanging out in front; one mama and two babies. It was raining a bit by the time we left that distillery, and they were sheltering under a bush.

Bunnies at Laphroaig

The crown jewel was Dave's visit to Lagavulin, which is his favorite scotch whisky. 

Dave's Ron Swanson moment at Lagavulin

He got some very rare tasters, his favorite being the 25-year; pretty wild to think that we were in high school when this was made!

Somehow, I got Dave's drunk ass to the Islay airport, where we flew to Glasgow. The city is known for having the best Indian food in Scotland, so we visited Mother India for a delightful dinner. Ultimately, Dave said it was the perfect day, which is exactly what I was looking for, but we now know enough of Islay to see that we need to go back for a longer visit.