Blogs from Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 118

Hey folks I found a cheap internet cafe so I thought I would just drop a quick update. A quick hello to John in South Carolina, USA. I guess he was checking out this website and randomly subscribed to my blog to check it outl You were saying that you wanted to do a trip like mine someday and trust me when I tell you...DO IT NOW!!! Its seriously the best thing that I have ever done and it has completely changed my outlook on life and everything. I have spoken to so many people that I have met on my travels that have sold cars, retirement savings, houses, you name it to come on a trip like this and not a single one of them has regretted it! Now that that is out of the ... read more

Arrived in surprisingly sunny scotland today after a beautiful drive through the north of england. on the way up we decided to join the Da Vinci trail and visit rosslyn chapel. I stupidly imagined it to be exactly how it is in the book. Perhaps i just missed out the part of the story when the fella has to pay 7 quid to get in, and the part where he admires the corragated iron roof and the scaffolding.In the little booth where you pay they had displays over the walls showing pictures of the chapel (pre Dan Brown) and the history of the place which was really interesting. the fella kept asking if we were coming in- 'Yes in just a minute!'- but after we had pretty much seen all that was inside anyway, we barged ... read more

Hey everyone, We just finished a couple of crazy day trips. Yesterday we went out to Perth (to see Scone palace) and to Pitlochry (to visit the Edradour distillery). We've done soooo much walking - we figure we get atleast 40km a day (especially the past few days). You should see our legs- they're getting super toned! Yesterday - after a tour of the distillary our tourguide offered to walk back to the main town with us via a shortcut through the woods (on the way there we took the much longer way (1 hour of walking uphill!). It was really cool, he was wearing a kilt and we saw an apparently rare red deer! The weather here's been unusually hot - every local we run into tells us it hasn't been this hot in years ... read more

It was a bit creepy last night. With no a/c and more insufferable heat I had to leave my floor to ceiling window wide open just to get some air flow. However, with all the construction being done on the facade of the hotel there was scaffolding right outside my window. If some enterprising thief had wanted to steal a nice digital camera, an MP3 player, a bottle of Scotch and an empty wallet, he could have easily shinnied his way up and into my room. Breakfast was down in the deepest bowels of the hotel. It was a pretty decent spread but featured mostly cereals and juices. No eggs, bacon or hash browns. I made do with some toast and butter. Then washed it down with some decent orange juice. When we left the hotel ... read more

I made the mistake of watching the morning TV news. The weather report promised more record high temperatures all over Europe. Luckily for us Scotland's record high temps would only reach the upper 80's instead of the near 100's further South. Oddly enough as we started loading up on to the bus it was actually a bit nippy outside. Today's itinerary sounded like another winner to me: We would head to the touristy town of Pitlochry, then to Sterling and Sterling Castle, followed by a drive along the Firth of Forth on in to Edinburgh. I was aware of Sterling Castle's role in the whole Braveheart/William Wallace/Robert Bruce era and it was eager to see this area of Scotland which also hosted the battles of Sterling Bridge, Falkirk and Bannockburn. Before the movie Braveheart came out ... read more