12 spectacular days in
sometimes sunny Scotland
sometimes sunny Scotland
The logistics
Our planning
Getting there and back
Getting around
Our hotels
Eating
Weather and packing
Sightseeing
Our planning:
In addition to the excellent advice from the Fodors European discussion
board, we relied on the Michelin Green Guide, DK/Eyewitness Scotland
and a very good Michelin orange regional map #501 -- invaluable, and now
ripped at the seams.
As we worked though our plans, it felt for a time like we might never be
leaving the Chicago area, what with towns or areas called Elgin, Glencoe,
Bannockburn, Midlothian, Braeside, Dundee, etc. We would soon learn that
only the names were similar....
Getting there and back:
This trip gave us a chance to try out yet another member of the Star Alliance
-- bmi. We flew Chicago to Manchester to Edinburgh, and the same in
reverse. No splurging on airfare this time. We paid $650 for economy
seats, purchased through united.com back in January, and never saw the
fare go below $950 after that.
Overall, we were favorably impressed with bmi and absolutely would fly
with them again. For the transatlantic route, they use well-maintained
A330s with the full entertainment system (extensive film and television
choices and video games) at every seat. Nothing like a little game of
Centipede to pass the time at 38,000 feet. Seat pitch was pretty average
(read: tight), but seats include footrests. Service was professional, efficient
and very pleasant. The food wasn't very good, but you do have to respect
the little tubs of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. Beer, wine and
cocktails were free. Even the lowly economy passengers got amenity kits.
Connecting at Manchester was far preferable to Heathrow, although we
can safely say we'd rather pass the time at United's Red Carpet Club at
Heathrow than bmi's lounge at Manchester.
Our one travel glitch came courtesy of a pothole on the runway at O'Hare,
which suddenly needed attention as we were queued up and ready to take
off. As a result, we were an hour late arriving in Manchester and missed
our connection to Edinburgh. No problem. A bmi agent met us in the jetway
as we were deplaning, with new boarding cards that she already had
prepared as well as a £15 voucher for food in the terminal -- nice,
considering bmi had nothing to do with the delay. We had a couple of
hours to kill, but since it was raining in Edinburgh, it probably didn't matter
much.
Getting around in Scotland:
Our one splurge for the trip was our rental car. We knew we'd be spending
quite a bit of time in the car, so we wanted it to be comfortable. And
although we are both capable of driving a manual, we didn't want the
driving experience to be so onerous that we missed the scenery entirely.
So we reserved a premium automatic -- typically a small Mercedes sedan.
There were a few anxious moments at the Hertz counter as the agent
looked repeatedly through sets of keys, shaking his head. "We don't have
any cars in your class. So I'm going to bump you up to a Volvo." Great!
Come to find out it was a station wagon, and we won't bore you with details
of Marisa trying to back it up to get out of a lane in the Hertz lot. And we'll
withhold our Volvo commercial for now, but suffice it to say it was a very
nice car. We put nearly 1,300 miles on it in our eight days outside
Edinburgh.
We rented from Hertz, by the way, because we eventually would have to
return the car very early in the morning -- before opening hours. Hertz was
the only agency that indicated it would accept an out-of-hours return,
although we did see Avis agents on duty in the airport at 6:30am.
Adapting to driving in the UK turned out to be pretty much a non-issue.
Marisa has done it before, including several times in a manual with some
not-so-fond memories of dodging sheep and scraping by on tiny little
country roads. We had no major problems staying in the correct lane or
navigating roundabouts (which are great, by the way; wish we had more of
them here), and few missed turns. We did have to shoo away a few sheep
here and there and dodge a few tour buses. Many of the smaller country
roads have passing points every few hundred feet to assist with two-way
traffic. The biggest adjustment for us was the perception of distance to the
edge on the left side of the car. We both hit the curb a few times, but
fortunately no repeats of the time Marisa blew a tire in Santa Margherita
Ligure (and that was while driving on the right side). That, and when Marisa
got into her Ford Explorer back at home and had to really concentrate on
staying to the right.
We did find that, unless our routes were by motorway, it often took longer
than we thought to get from point A to point B. Some of our plans may have
been a bit overambitious, and in some cases we cut a few planned stops.
As with any driving trip, we found it was very helpful to have a good, detailed
map; an attentive and capable navigator; and a good idea of where you are
going and how to get there before starting out.
Our hotels:
We like B&Bs and typically went this route for the trip. We found
www.visitscotland.com very helpful in picking out places to stay, and in the
end we were very pleased with all of our choices and, especially, the
hospitality at each. Of course, we'd prefer not having to move hotels every
couple of days, but given the things we wanted to see on this trip, it was
necessary.
Because there are three of us, we had to look for family rooms. Overall, our
goal was to stay below £90 for B&B -- which we did, at an average of £84.
We will add that, although we were fairly modest in our choices (and this
includes restaurants, attractions, etc., in addition to hotels), this still was
an expensive vacation with the exchange rate being what it is. In this
regard, we know you will win some and lose some, and this year we
definitely lost. But it was still worth it.
Castle View Guest House, Edinburgh, 3 nights
Very well located, right in New Town and convenient to restaurants and all
the sights. It is on the fourth and fifth floors (by American standards) of a
Georgian building. There is no lift, but they are very forthcoming about this
when you are reserving. Good preparation for all the climbing we'd do later
in the trip. The room was a little cozy, but nicely decorated. The price --
£100 -- not bad for being in central Edinburgh.
Parrandier, The Old Church of Urquhart, Moray, 2 nights
Our most interesting accommodation, in an old, converted church in the
country about five miles from Elgin. We can't speak to the standard rooms
(which were smaller), but the family room was HUGE, with a big, modern
bath. And it was adjacent to a guest lounge, making you really feel like you
had room to spread out. Dinner is available on request. We ate there one
night and it was very good.
Uig Hotel, Uig, Isle of Skye, 2 nights
We debated about where to base ourselves to see Skye and chose this
hotel because of its location on the Trotternish Peninsula, where we
thought we'd be spending most of our time. It is more a small hotel than a
B&B; not very posh but very friendly. The room was rather utilitarian but
quite spacious with a very nice view of the bay. The hotel is family run.
They've acquired it relatively recently and appear to be upgrading it. The
restaurant is rather pricey for our budget. We stuck to lower priced entrees
and probably got what we paid for.
Kilchrenan House, Oban, 3 nights
This B&B is right on the Corran Esplanade, just north of the center, and
has terrific views of the harbor. Nicely decorated. Our room was on the top
floor, and was more like a mini-suite, with the second bed in an "alcove" off
the hall between the main bedroom and the bath; Allie liked this private
little nook. The sloped ceilings in the bathroom did make standing in the
shower a bit of a challenge. Breakfasts were great -- especially the
porridge.
Carriden House, near Linlithgow, 1 night
This is an old manor house that, at some point in its 400-year history, was
remodeled to look like a small castle. It is down a dirt road near the Firth of
Forth, and has a very interesting and spooky old graveyard on the property
with some headstones from the 1600s. We picked this for the proximity (15
miles) to the airport for our early morning departure, but wish we had more
time there. Again, the family room was huge, with about 15-foot ceilings.
Eating:
We aren't big foodies, and because we are traveling with a rather picky
11-year-old, our restaurant choices are fairly modest and we usually don't
keep track unless something is particularly notable.
One place that we did enjoy very much and would recommend is The
Studio in Oban. We wandered in our first night there and were lucky to be
seated. It's a tiny little place with about 10 tables. We enjoyed it so much
that we reserved a table for two nights later. The three-course menu, at just
under £15, offers a nice variety of choices for appetizer, entrée and dessert.
The Loch Etive mussels were a huge hit, as were the salmon and grilled
haddock entrees.
By the way, breakfasts at all of our hotels were great. Having the full
Scottish breakfasts enabled us to eat light for lunch. Only Chris was daring
enough to try the haggis and black pudding. Allie quickly became fond of
potato scones, which will now be a test for Marisa's limited cooking skills
at home. Marisa has been fixing herself porridge every morning since
returning. And we're all going through withdrawal from Scottish bacon.
Weather and packing:
No one goes to Scotland for the weather. Rain is inevitable, and you just
have to hope that it is clear enough to see the wonderful scenery.
In all, we were pretty lucky with the weather. We certainly had our share of
rain, but a lot of times it came the hardest when it didn't really matter --
evenings, while driving, etc. The only day where rain really put a damper on
things was in Stirling. Nevertheless, we tried to make sure we had some
contingency plans in mind to accommodate bad weather.
In addition, it was quite cool at times. Chris wished he'd packed fewer
short sleeved shirts. Good rain gear -- hats, jackets, umbrellas -- is
essential.
Marisa debated and debated about shoes for this trip, and whether or not
to bring the LLBean day hikers. In the end, they went in the suitcase (at the
expense of some other things) and pulled double duty. On the other hand,
the pair of sandals she packed made one appearance. Chris was happy
with his Timberland boat shoes and Merrill walkers.
Sightseeing:
Our goal was to get a good overview of Scotland, and to see as many of the
different areas as was realistic in 12 days. We knew it would be
impossible to do it all and that we only would be skimming the surface in
some parts, hopefully picking up some good ideas about where we'd like
to return in the future.
For a trip around Scotland, we recommend looking into either the Historic
Scotland pass or the British Heritage Pass (probably a better choice if your
trip includes both Scotland and England). For a fixed price, you get
admission into a variety of places for a certain number of days. We
purchased the Historic Scotland family pass for £44, which provided
access to some 75 attractions on any of seven days during a 14-day
period. It didn't cover every place we visited, but the separate cost of
admission to Edinburgh and Stirling Castles alone would have been £39,
so we easily came out ahead. We ended up visiting 10-12 of the included
sights. It doesn't eliminate the need to get in line for admission, but that
was never a problem. In a few cases, we were the only ones there.
our travels
home
contact us
Our planning
Getting there and back
Getting around
Our hotels
Eating
Weather and packing
Sightseeing
Our planning:
In addition to the excellent advice from the Fodors European discussion
board, we relied on the Michelin Green Guide, DK/Eyewitness Scotland
and a very good Michelin orange regional map #501 -- invaluable, and now
ripped at the seams.
As we worked though our plans, it felt for a time like we might never be
leaving the Chicago area, what with towns or areas called Elgin, Glencoe,
Bannockburn, Midlothian, Braeside, Dundee, etc. We would soon learn that
only the names were similar....
Getting there and back:
This trip gave us a chance to try out yet another member of the Star Alliance
-- bmi. We flew Chicago to Manchester to Edinburgh, and the same in
reverse. No splurging on airfare this time. We paid $650 for economy
seats, purchased through united.com back in January, and never saw the
fare go below $950 after that.
Overall, we were favorably impressed with bmi and absolutely would fly
with them again. For the transatlantic route, they use well-maintained
A330s with the full entertainment system (extensive film and television
choices and video games) at every seat. Nothing like a little game of
Centipede to pass the time at 38,000 feet. Seat pitch was pretty average
(read: tight), but seats include footrests. Service was professional, efficient
and very pleasant. The food wasn't very good, but you do have to respect
the little tubs of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough ice cream. Beer, wine and
cocktails were free. Even the lowly economy passengers got amenity kits.
Connecting at Manchester was far preferable to Heathrow, although we
can safely say we'd rather pass the time at United's Red Carpet Club at
Heathrow than bmi's lounge at Manchester.
Our one travel glitch came courtesy of a pothole on the runway at O'Hare,
which suddenly needed attention as we were queued up and ready to take
off. As a result, we were an hour late arriving in Manchester and missed
our connection to Edinburgh. No problem. A bmi agent met us in the jetway
as we were deplaning, with new boarding cards that she already had
prepared as well as a £15 voucher for food in the terminal -- nice,
considering bmi had nothing to do with the delay. We had a couple of
hours to kill, but since it was raining in Edinburgh, it probably didn't matter
much.
Getting around in Scotland:
Our one splurge for the trip was our rental car. We knew we'd be spending
quite a bit of time in the car, so we wanted it to be comfortable. And
although we are both capable of driving a manual, we didn't want the
driving experience to be so onerous that we missed the scenery entirely.
So we reserved a premium automatic -- typically a small Mercedes sedan.
There were a few anxious moments at the Hertz counter as the agent
looked repeatedly through sets of keys, shaking his head. "We don't have
any cars in your class. So I'm going to bump you up to a Volvo." Great!
Come to find out it was a station wagon, and we won't bore you with details
of Marisa trying to back it up to get out of a lane in the Hertz lot. And we'll
withhold our Volvo commercial for now, but suffice it to say it was a very
nice car. We put nearly 1,300 miles on it in our eight days outside
Edinburgh.
We rented from Hertz, by the way, because we eventually would have to
return the car very early in the morning -- before opening hours. Hertz was
the only agency that indicated it would accept an out-of-hours return,
although we did see Avis agents on duty in the airport at 6:30am.
Adapting to driving in the UK turned out to be pretty much a non-issue.
Marisa has done it before, including several times in a manual with some
not-so-fond memories of dodging sheep and scraping by on tiny little
country roads. We had no major problems staying in the correct lane or
navigating roundabouts (which are great, by the way; wish we had more of
them here), and few missed turns. We did have to shoo away a few sheep
here and there and dodge a few tour buses. Many of the smaller country
roads have passing points every few hundred feet to assist with two-way
traffic. The biggest adjustment for us was the perception of distance to the
edge on the left side of the car. We both hit the curb a few times, but
fortunately no repeats of the time Marisa blew a tire in Santa Margherita
Ligure (and that was while driving on the right side). That, and when Marisa
got into her Ford Explorer back at home and had to really concentrate on
staying to the right.
We did find that, unless our routes were by motorway, it often took longer
than we thought to get from point A to point B. Some of our plans may have
been a bit overambitious, and in some cases we cut a few planned stops.
As with any driving trip, we found it was very helpful to have a good, detailed
map; an attentive and capable navigator; and a good idea of where you are
going and how to get there before starting out.
Our hotels:
We like B&Bs and typically went this route for the trip. We found
www.visitscotland.com very helpful in picking out places to stay, and in the
end we were very pleased with all of our choices and, especially, the
hospitality at each. Of course, we'd prefer not having to move hotels every
couple of days, but given the things we wanted to see on this trip, it was
necessary.
Because there are three of us, we had to look for family rooms. Overall, our
goal was to stay below £90 for B&B -- which we did, at an average of £84.
We will add that, although we were fairly modest in our choices (and this
includes restaurants, attractions, etc., in addition to hotels), this still was
an expensive vacation with the exchange rate being what it is. In this
regard, we know you will win some and lose some, and this year we
definitely lost. But it was still worth it.
Castle View Guest House, Edinburgh, 3 nights
Very well located, right in New Town and convenient to restaurants and all
the sights. It is on the fourth and fifth floors (by American standards) of a
Georgian building. There is no lift, but they are very forthcoming about this
when you are reserving. Good preparation for all the climbing we'd do later
in the trip. The room was a little cozy, but nicely decorated. The price --
£100 -- not bad for being in central Edinburgh.
Parrandier, The Old Church of Urquhart, Moray, 2 nights
Our most interesting accommodation, in an old, converted church in the
country about five miles from Elgin. We can't speak to the standard rooms
(which were smaller), but the family room was HUGE, with a big, modern
bath. And it was adjacent to a guest lounge, making you really feel like you
had room to spread out. Dinner is available on request. We ate there one
night and it was very good.
Uig Hotel, Uig, Isle of Skye, 2 nights
We debated about where to base ourselves to see Skye and chose this
hotel because of its location on the Trotternish Peninsula, where we
thought we'd be spending most of our time. It is more a small hotel than a
B&B; not very posh but very friendly. The room was rather utilitarian but
quite spacious with a very nice view of the bay. The hotel is family run.
They've acquired it relatively recently and appear to be upgrading it. The
restaurant is rather pricey for our budget. We stuck to lower priced entrees
and probably got what we paid for.
Kilchrenan House, Oban, 3 nights
This B&B is right on the Corran Esplanade, just north of the center, and
has terrific views of the harbor. Nicely decorated. Our room was on the top
floor, and was more like a mini-suite, with the second bed in an "alcove" off
the hall between the main bedroom and the bath; Allie liked this private
little nook. The sloped ceilings in the bathroom did make standing in the
shower a bit of a challenge. Breakfasts were great -- especially the
porridge.
Carriden House, near Linlithgow, 1 night
This is an old manor house that, at some point in its 400-year history, was
remodeled to look like a small castle. It is down a dirt road near the Firth of
Forth, and has a very interesting and spooky old graveyard on the property
with some headstones from the 1600s. We picked this for the proximity (15
miles) to the airport for our early morning departure, but wish we had more
time there. Again, the family room was huge, with about 15-foot ceilings.
Eating:
We aren't big foodies, and because we are traveling with a rather picky
11-year-old, our restaurant choices are fairly modest and we usually don't
keep track unless something is particularly notable.
One place that we did enjoy very much and would recommend is The
Studio in Oban. We wandered in our first night there and were lucky to be
seated. It's a tiny little place with about 10 tables. We enjoyed it so much
that we reserved a table for two nights later. The three-course menu, at just
under £15, offers a nice variety of choices for appetizer, entrée and dessert.
The Loch Etive mussels were a huge hit, as were the salmon and grilled
haddock entrees.
By the way, breakfasts at all of our hotels were great. Having the full
Scottish breakfasts enabled us to eat light for lunch. Only Chris was daring
enough to try the haggis and black pudding. Allie quickly became fond of
potato scones, which will now be a test for Marisa's limited cooking skills
at home. Marisa has been fixing herself porridge every morning since
returning. And we're all going through withdrawal from Scottish bacon.
Weather and packing:
No one goes to Scotland for the weather. Rain is inevitable, and you just
have to hope that it is clear enough to see the wonderful scenery.
In all, we were pretty lucky with the weather. We certainly had our share of
rain, but a lot of times it came the hardest when it didn't really matter --
evenings, while driving, etc. The only day where rain really put a damper on
things was in Stirling. Nevertheless, we tried to make sure we had some
contingency plans in mind to accommodate bad weather.
In addition, it was quite cool at times. Chris wished he'd packed fewer
short sleeved shirts. Good rain gear -- hats, jackets, umbrellas -- is
essential.
Marisa debated and debated about shoes for this trip, and whether or not
to bring the LLBean day hikers. In the end, they went in the suitcase (at the
expense of some other things) and pulled double duty. On the other hand,
the pair of sandals she packed made one appearance. Chris was happy
with his Timberland boat shoes and Merrill walkers.
Sightseeing:
Our goal was to get a good overview of Scotland, and to see as many of the
different areas as was realistic in 12 days. We knew it would be
impossible to do it all and that we only would be skimming the surface in
some parts, hopefully picking up some good ideas about where we'd like
to return in the future.
For a trip around Scotland, we recommend looking into either the Historic
Scotland pass or the British Heritage Pass (probably a better choice if your
trip includes both Scotland and England). For a fixed price, you get
admission into a variety of places for a certain number of days. We
purchased the Historic Scotland family pass for £44, which provided
access to some 75 attractions on any of seven days during a 14-day
period. It didn't cover every place we visited, but the separate cost of
admission to Edinburgh and Stirling Castles alone would have been £39,
so we easily came out ahead. We ended up visiting 10-12 of the included
sights. It doesn't eliminate the need to get in line for admission, but that
was never a problem. In a few cases, we were the only ones there.
our travels
home
contact us
Old Church of Urquhart, B&B near Elgin
View from the Uig Hotel, and the coos
Kilchrenan House, Oban
Old graveyard at Carriden House
Hardest working member of our party,
at Elgol
at Elgol
Fairy Glen, Skye
Kilt Rock, Isle of Skye
Elgin Cathedral
Allie and Chris in Edinburgh (in the rain)
Marisa in the graveyard at Scone Palace
Stirling Castle
Duntulum Castle, Isle of Skye
