Strauch/Bruno Web Photo Album

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4/26-5/5/2023 After a week in New York for Kelsey's birthday, we flew off to Scotland. Google Photos

Scotland Trip Log

Wednesday, April 26, we flew out from New York's JFK on a red eye British Airways flight to London but missed our connecting flight to Inverness, Scotland. Heathrow was a crowded mess, and we had to wait an hour in the rebooking line to get a new flight. They sent us to Belfast with a connecting flight to Inverness. Unfortunately our bags did not make it to Inverness, but they did show up the next day on Friday. We got to Inverness around 5pm and picked up our rental car from Europcar. The rental car was a small Fiat 500 but was fine for the two of us. It had Apple Car Play so it was easy for us to find our Airbnb in Inverness and find our way around for the the rest of the trip. Of course we could not change our clothes since we did not have our bags. Our hosts at the Airbnb, Paul and Angela, were very nice and helped us get oriented on how to do things in Scotland, like using your iPhone. To make calls in Scotland, we had to add +44 in front of a phone number and remove the leading zero. It was cool we could call and Facetime with anyone in the US with no problem. But we could not get texting to work to Scotland numbers, but we could call them. To communicate with our Airbnb hosts, we used the Airbnb app.

Friday, April 28, we began our day visiting Tourist Information (iCentre) in Inverness. This worked well for planning our day, and we would do this in all the towns we visited. For a guide book, we used Rick Steeves' Scotland book in conjunction with iCentres. Our first site to visit was Culloden Battlefield and Museum. This was a big battle for Scotland in 1700s and was a major part of the Outlander books and TV series that we both read and then watched. Nearby the battlefield we visited the ancient stones called Clava Cairns (also an important part of the Outlander books). We enjoyed a good lunch at the museum cafe. We got notified that our bags had arrived at the airport so we went and picked them up right away. What a relief to have all of our stuff! For the rest of the day we headed off to Loch Ness, and we drove 60 miles all the way around the lake.

Saturday, April 29, we did an Airbnb walking tour of Inverness with Cath who was a very good and informative local guide, just four of us in the group. Next off to St.Andrews, and we stopped for a late lunch at Taste Perthsire restaurant on the way. We had a problem with the rental car with a slow leak in one of the tires. After calling Europcar, they had us take it into a Kwik Fix tire dealer to fix it. Sunday morning we dropped it off when they opened and walked into town to the iCentre. Then we visited some sites in town like the ruins of St Andrews Cathedral, the old part of St Andrews University (the oldest university in Scotland), just walked by the old castle skipping the tour and then hit the Wardlaw Museum. This town is famous for its golf courses, and we did a driving tour around the one for the British Open right along the water. When we returned to the tire dealer, they said they could not fix it because the rim of one of the wheels was bent. So we had to keep adding air to the tire until we could get to a Europcar place to switch cars.

Sunday, April 30, after picking up the car from the tire dealer, we took the coast road and stopped at an old hotel in Crail called the Golf Hotel for a good lunch. Jennifer, a friend from work, said her mother got sent to Elie, Scotland as a child during World War 2. We stopped and took some pictures of the town and sent them to Jennifer who passed them along to her mother who said the town square looked the same as she remembered. Next stop for us was Edinburgh where we stayed at an Airbnb with very nice hosts Esther and Glen for two nights. Each breakfast they served had fresh mixed fruit, freshed-baked scones and bread. All very delicious.

Monday, May 1, each morning while Laura is sleeping in, I took a nice walk. Close to the Airbnb was a beautiful park, Holyrood, with nice views of all Edinburgh. Next a full day in Edinburgh, we took the bus down to the iCentre from our Airbnb. The best way to orient to the town was taking the open double decker bus with an audio tour. You could hop on and hop off at any of the tourist sites for the day. We did the full loop and then got off and toured the St Giles Cathedral and Edinburgh Castle. Both were very popular and was our first castle tour. We got a free tasting of whiskey at the whiskey store inside the castle. After the castle, we hit a local pub called Captain's Bar, had a pint and listened to live Scottish folk music from a number of older, talented musicians.

Tuesday, May 2, we stopped by the Edinburgh Airport's Europcar office and swapped our Fiat rental for a Corsa Vauxhall. No more leaky tire, and that car did fine the rest of the trip. Next stop was Stirling and the Stirling Castle. All the castle tours were different and this one had people in costume playing their role. After the castle, we toured the Church of Holy Rude with a personal guide who knew the history of the church. Off to Glasgow to our next Airbnb with our helpful host Anu. Anu suggested a good Indian restaurant close by which we enjoyed.

Wednesday, May 3, this morning's walk was thru the Botanic Gardens not far from the Airbnb. We took the subway (just a couple blocks from the Airbnb) down to the iCentre from our Airbnb. The subway went in a loop with an inner loop going one way and an outer loop going the other way. Very cool. You could get anywhere in Glasgow fast. Again we did the double decker bus tour and this time with a live guide which we liked better. The weather started out good but by the end it was raining and we were the only ones left in the open part of the bus. Still the best way to get oriented to a new city and helps you decide what sites to explore more closely. We hopped back on the subway to Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. We caught a 1pm organ recital while we ate lunch at the museum cafe. They had quite few famous paintings in their collection including Salvador Dali's St. John of the Cross. This is the nicest museum we saw on our trip. The last thing for the day was St. Andrew's Cathedral and a Candian fastfood restaurant, Tim Hortons.

Thursday, May 4, we caught two more sites in Glasgow: St Mungo Cathedral (parts of it were built in the 1200s) and People's Palace which gave a good history of the city of Glasgow (it was once the second largest city in the UK after London). Back to the Highlands driving north we stopped for lunch at Duck Bay Restaurant with a nice view right on Loch Lomond. Nice water fall on the way Falls of Falloch to next stop Oban where we took a few pictures, then on to Glencoe and our next Airbnb. Our host Ashley (a man) made us tea when we arrived and called in reservations for us at the Loch Leven Seafood Restaurant. As usual a very friendly and helpful host. We drove up to the pass with beautiful views and then around Loch Leven to our restaurant for dinner. The menu had this one seafood plate of shellfish for 110 pounds ($140) just piled high with all sorts of shellfish, but of course, we did not order that, but we saw many other tables that did.

Friday, May 5, this morning my walk 3 miles 700 feet was on a hiking trail right off our Airbnb and I could have done a 7 mile loop up a mountain Sgorr Dhearg 3360 feet on this trail but not enough time. Our last full day in Scotland, we drove first to Fort Williams and the iCentre to decide what do. Off to the Isle of Skye with a stop Eilean Donan Castle in Dornie. This castle had been totally restored and used as a residence until 1949. It sits right in the water and is totally surrounded by water at high tide. Our last tourist stop was the main city of Portree on the Isle of Skye. There we had a good lunch at Cafe Vamos Arriba. I had to order a burger and fries (we were tired of fish and chips) to see how the Scottish would cook it, and Laura had a delicious bowl of sweet potato soup. They did a good job on both. Then a long drive back to Inverness and our last Airbnb which was near the airport for our early flight the next morning.

4/20-26/2023&4/6,9,10,12,14/2023 Trip to New York for Kelsey's 41st birthday; party at Kelsey's apartment on her birthday along with art show GalleryBQE (under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway near her apartment), displaying Kelsey's art work (Kalcium Fortified bones and AI pugs) and other local artists, surprise visit from Tim, Janet, Sam, Holly and Michael; train trip out to Ossining for nice visit with Eddie and Jeanne and short hike Croton Point Park on the Hudson then dinner out; got tickets to the Daily Show with guest host Desi Lydic who was very good and we had a fun time; Kelsey showing us how she silk screens tee-shirts with her bone art; visit to MOMA (The Museum of Modern Art) with Kelsey and a special exhibit from Georgia O'Keeffe; Hart's Cove hike 3.5 miles 700 feet on the coast; Easter dinner at Julie's with Aaron, Addy, Liz, Elin and Tim; Starvation Creek hike 3 miles 200 feet in the gorge; Mike's retirement lunch at Marco Polo with Jolene, Pete, Suzanne, Jeff, Jennifer, Dwayne, AndyM, AndyU, Ken, Ramesh and Dan; fly to Pacific City on the coast with Ramesh in Cessna Skyhawk 172 and bike on the beach (they have a shed with bikes for pilots to use). Google Photos