48 Hours in Scotland
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Rather than writing too much this time about the history of all the locations we visited, whenever possible I've included links that you can follow to learn more about the various places if you want to do that.
The ferry to Scotland is not too far from us, in the town of Larne. We had some difficulty finding a taxi that would take us to Larne early Monday morning. I had to call five different companies on Sunday before finding one in Larne, of the few that was open and willing to start work early enough on Monday to pick us up at 7:00AM. He arrived 20 minutes late, after phoning me twice, having difficulty finding us. Our cottage sits right on the edge of Garron road which is the coast road from Larne all the way north. When he finally arrived he said "I never knew this was Garron Road. We just call it the Coast Road."
We made it to
Larne Harbour and into the ferry terminal just in time, seconds before they closed the gate. The ferry is very similar to the Vancouver-Victoria ferries with a small bar, restaurant and snack bar although the main seating area
has a movie playing. The trip from Larne Harbour to
Troon, Scotland cost 28 pounds each, one way, and took just over 2 hours. After landing in Troon, a 25 minute walk through the small town takes you to the train station and 7.60 pounds buys you a ticket for the approximately 30 minute trip to Glasgow.
Central Train Station is right in the middle of downtown and only a block from our hotel, the
Alexander Thomson . As it was only around noon, our room wasn't ready so we dropped off our bag and headed out to explore Glasgow. There are two streets across each other downtown that are pedestrian shopping areas. The higher end shops are on Buchanan and we found a great little fish & chip restaurant down a little lane, appropriately named
Chippy Doon The Lane , and had a great lunch there.
We decided to tour the city for a couple hours with the Hop on, Hop off bus that starts right near our hotel. It was a great tour for 13 Pounds each and got us quickly acquainted with the different areas of Glasgow. It's a very old city with a lot of beautiful architecture. The city
was busy with lots of tourists and people shopping. After the tour we got checked into our room and decided on supper at a wonderful Italian restaurant right next door;
Piccolo Mondo . Fantastic service and food at very reasonable prices.
The next day we had the full breakfast included in the room price. Almost the entire first floor is the breakfast room made up of large adjoining rooms and a bar. It is all VERY old with 20 foot ceilings and gave us the feeling of being transported back in time to a grand old ball room. The breakfast is a buffet of hot and cold food although pretty weak on fruit, but all the food was very good.
We walked up to our meeting spot for our day tour to
Stirling Castle ,
Loch Lomond , (remember the
">song ?)and
Glengoyne Distillery for some Scotch tasting, with "rabbie's tours", booked through
Go Scotland Tours . We had 14 people in a large van; very comfortable and large windows and a great driver/guide (Graham). The tour was from 9:00AM to 6:00PM and was not rushed at all. The tour cost of 37 Pounds each did not include lunch or the entry fees to
Doune Castle
Medieval stronghold near the village of Doune.the castle (13 Pounds each) and distillery tour and scotch tasting (9.50 Pounds each including 2 tastings). We had plenty of time to tour the castle at leisure although we went along on a free guided tour for a while with a very informative and fun guide giving us lots of history.
We had a little extra time before lunch so we made an unscheduled stop at
Doune Castle . Doune Castle is a medieval stronghold near the village of Doune, in the Stirling district of central Scotland. The castle sits on a wooded bend where the Ardoch Burn flows into the River Teith. This castle was used in several films including Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Ivanhoe, the Outlander series, as well as one or two of the first episodes of Game of Thrones.
Lunch time was on our own in a small town (I think it was Arnprior) with extra time to explore a bit then we had a couple of hours around Loch Lomond to take a hike up over a hill from one part of the lake to another and around a point. Moderately difficult hike at times but well worth it with some
Loch Lomond
Sits on Scotland's Lowland/Highland fault great views with the Lowlands on one side of us and the Highlands on the other.
After we were dropped off back in Glasgow around 6:00PM we decided to go to a traditional Scottish pub, the
Piper Bar , nearby on George Square for supper. I had a great Steak and Ale pie there and Chris had Mac and Cheese. Nice atmosphere and good prices; definitely recommend the spot.
The next morning we had the hotel breakfast again before walking back to the train station for our 1/2 hour ride back to Troon. We had some free time before the ferry so wandered around downtown Troon a bit. It's a very small town but with some interesting small shops to wander around in.
Although we only had a small, rolling carry-on bag, you can check your bag for the ferry passage. It worked great both ways and after landing, the bag was in the ferry terminal waiting for us each way. We arrived back in Larne with a couple of hours to spare so we wandered around the downtown area for a while and found the Dunnes, a better grocery store than Lidl which we had used last
time. So we picked up a few supplies there before walking back to the bus stop at the train station to catch the #252 up the coast to Garron Point. This bus only started running on July 1 for the summer, so suddenly a bit of transportation became available to us. At 6 Pounds each it's half the price of a taxi and it stops right at the cottage door.
So we're back in our little cottage just for one night before heading out again on the #252 to explore some nearby sites along the north coast.
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