Blogs from Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 10

Our night in the castle was lovely. Although Don swears he heard a ghost in our room in the middle of the night. I slept through it all so I can’t confirm or deny but they do say the castle is haunted. After a hearty breakfast, we set off the the Culloden battlefield and Visitors Center. This was a fascinating stop. We had no idea of this pact of this battle on the UK or the world. It decided the UK civil war which had huge impact on the US revolutionary war and the way the Uk moved forward. From there, we did a totally touristy thing - a cruise on Loch Ness. No we didn’t see anything unusual in the water - but we did get a dog toy for Sadie. It also covered history ... read more

Today we split up and did different things. Don got up at 4:30 am and drove 1.5 hours to Saint Andrews to try to play the old course. Unfortunately, only the people who basically spent the night in the queue were able to get a spot so about noon, he headed back. I’m the meantime, I packed up our laundry and went to a local laundrette. It was a nice relaxing morning with my book. When Don got back, we went for a fish and chips lunch where a talkative Scotsman regaled us with stories about his naval family in the US. We walked from there to the National Museum of Scotland. It didn’t help us get too familiar with the history of Scotland, unfortunately. Then we did the Hop On, Hop Off bus around the ... read more

So much for our dedication to photography. When the question came up yesterday evening whether we wanted to be out early again this morning for the sunrise, it was an almost unanimous "No!" So after another noisy night of wind and rain, it was very evident that we had made the right decision when I got up at a nice sociable time for breakfast. It wasn't raining but the sky was white and much too drab for photography. We all had breakfast together and then I went for a walk around Tarbert, which, on a Sunday is even more sleepy than on any other day. Our favourite coffee shop at the distillery was closed, as was the tweed shop. My flight was earlier than everyone else's, so after saying all my goodbyes to the rest of ... read more

The weather forecasts had predicted bad weather this morning, so we had taken the executive decision last night not to have an early start, to enjoy a lay-in, get up at our leisure and have a nice causal breakfast. This is always a risk as we would have been gutted if we had woken up to a glorious sunrise (especially if that news had come from the other photography group), but, as predicted, the wind was blowing and it was pouring with rain. Despite the lay-in, I was still tired as the storms had raged all night and the wind and rain seemed biblical at times. Apparently, it's all connected to my namesake, Storm Ian, which has caused a lot of unfortunate damage in Florida. It was clear that the morning was going to be a ... read more

28th September Well those high winds the Captain mentioned yesterday didn’t disturb us during the night and this morning we saw the sun rise as we docked in Kirkwall, Orkney. An initial technical hitch which prevented the gangway from being lowered was a bit worrying but we need not to worry for long as it was soon sorted and we could then set off on another panoramic tour. We travelled inland to the spiritual hub of the island so-called Neolithic Orkney which comprises of four ancient monuments designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We passed the ancient Ring of Brodgar - Scotland’s largest stone circle with a diameter of 100 mtrs and much older then Stonehenge. We stopped to view the Standing Stones of Stenness dating back more than 5,000 years and one of the earliest ... read more