Blogs from Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 12

After a good few hours sleep, we woke up convinced that our hotel-related issues were over, but after discovering the place didn’t have any hot water we quickly changed our mind. The smell of burnt toast greeted us as we headed for breakfast, though even if we wanted toast we needed to queue behind the entire hotel, as there was only one toaster to deal with the entire breakfast order, two slices at a time. The continental breakfast consisted of cereal with sour milk or toast, if you had the patience. Wanting to get our money’s worth, we made use of the tea on offer and downed our cereal, bad milk or not, then once the queue had lessened, Lyndsey patiently sat and made toast for us all. After breakfast, we needed to find the hotel ... read more

Greetings from Edinburgh, one last time. I leave for Brugge tomorrow, and so I felt that I should write once more before I leave Auld Reekie. My year-long stay has been a memorable one. I'll miss the city and the people I've met here. I'll miss the banter in the pub with the fantastic ales and whiskies. I'll miss the Ceilidh's and the kilts, though I'm sure I'll get myself a kilt one day. I'll miss wandering the streets of Old Town and Edinburgh Castle. The weather, well the weather is one thing I won't miss too much. I didn't get out of Edinburgh and see the highlands and the rest of the UK as much as I had hoped I would, but I guess it gives me an excuse to come back one day. And ... read more

16 mai Notre déjeuner le plus tôt pour pouvoir partir rapidement et profiter le l’île de Lewis et Harris. Nous avons beaucoup apprécié notre B&B. Ellen la propriétaire était très accueillante et parlait très bien le français. Nous avons beaucoup discuté. La réussite d’une « business » est dans le souci des détails… et elle possède très bien cet élément. Son B&B pourrait facilement être 5 étoiles selon ce que nous avons vu comme B&B. Nous y avons mangé une succulente omelette. Il faut dire que les déjeuners écossais sont tous pareils. Œufs, saucisses, bacon (pas comme chez-nous, jambon salé et qui a un peu moins de gras que notre bacon), tomates chaudes ou champignons. J’ai mangé une fois du « porridge » (du gruau). Ils ont des toasts mais le pain est très mince. On ... read more

Day 5 Pitlochry to Edinburgh 84 miles The outstanding feature of today was the ride alongside the River Tay. Someone has had the bright idea of ensuring that there was public access to a large part of it and we had the benefit. The main motivater for today was to arrive at Edinburgh where Ewen lives. We will have the advantage of home comforts. The disadvantage for me was that I was losing my companion for the last 5 days. I am a little anxious about being on my own but I can look forward to arriving at my sister Linda's place on Friday. I will then have a rest day and meet an old colleague of mine Pat, who has moved to Yorkshire. Hopefully I can meet up with my daughter Rosie who lives in ... read more

We left the Thatch house this morning about 10am to drive to Dublin and then fly to Scotland. It was freezing cold and windy in Ireland for our last day....even the locals commented....brrrrrrr. Flight was very uneventful and we were into Scotland within the hour. We picked up our rental car and GPS and headed into the heart of Edinburgh to the Radisson Blu Hotel only meters down the road from Edinburgh Castle and the Palace. A truly amazing city and you fell like you have gone back a few hundred years. The GPS got us there no problem. Chris driving very well in a new country. We checked into a beautiful room to find a bottle of wine on ice with a note to take it down stairs to the Bar as there are 4 ... read more

Welcome, folks from near and far, to my travel blog. I'm not much of a writer, but since I wil be embarking on a year-long trip into the unknown, I thought I should at least make an attempt to write about my travels. I've been away from Saskatoon for a year now and have had an exciting time living in a new country and meeting new friends from around the world. I tried to write up a short summary of my life over the past year, but I lost my internet connection and ended up losing everything I had written. It ended up not being brief, and I don't want to rewrite for 2 hours, so here's a shorter summary. I've been in Edinburgh for a year and in that time, I've done a little traveling ... read more