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Day 18: Fort William, Edinburgh
Welcome to day 18, basically where the Scotland part of this trip starts to wind down, with Edinburgh being the last stop. It kicked off again with waking a little too early, even with the hill the room got bright quite early. Snoozed until it was time to pack and do all the showering things, before heading down to one last attempt by the bnb host to feed me until I exploded. I went with the porridge this morning, because have you really been in Scotland if you haven’t had porridge? Then came the usual cooked goodness and fruit and yogurt, enough to see us through the morning. There was…
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Day 17: Fort William
The day started with our lovely bnb host attempting to smother us with food; with a big breakfast of muesli, a rack of toast, and a cooked breakfast. Oh, and some fruit and yogurt. Stomach was sufficiently bolstered for a big day ahead. We took a wander through Fort William as many of the shops were now open. It’s about a middle sized town, big enough to have at least two whisky shops, a bookshop, a chemist, a couple of cafes, several restaurants, and some other assorted stores. I popped into one of the whisky shops, as it had a number of independent bottlings in the window, and inside were…
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Day 16: Islay, Fort William
We were up early to get the bnb tidied, everything packed, and the ferry back to the mainland. Which meant that I barely slept, as I kept waking up, seeing it was bright outside through the rather thin curtains, and scrambling for my phone to make sure I hadn’t overslept. I hadn’t overslept when I did this at 1am, nor 3am, nor 5am, and I was still running on time when I got up at 6.45am. This ferry was one of the older, less shiny ones in the CalMac fleet, so instead of lovely carpet and wood veneer, it was lino and melamine. But it fit our car, and floated,…
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Day 15: Islay
The last full day in Islay, a day of just bits and pieces. Today was Ardbeg day, so just about everyone here for Feis Ile headed to the south end of the island for that. So we headed west, first stop the no-longer newest distillery on Islay, Kilchoman. This distillery generally produces a peaty, a little oily spirit, for me it works better in bourbon barrels but they do spend a lot of time using sherry. After several full days of whisky, plus cheese and spicy foods, and some ibuprofen, I found myself with a bit of reflux so I passed on doing any tasting. I was content just to…
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Day 14: Islay (and Jura)
That’s better, back to my usual readership of maybe 3 people, nothing like a good bit of drinking to thin the hits. Today’s entry might even get me down to 1. We kicked off with a trip on the ferry to Jura, well first with M, P & G trying to kill me by suggesting we walk the 20 or so minutes to Port Askaig. Now there are 20 minute walks, I do these all the time with the dog back home, but 20 minutes in Islay involves no more than 50 metres of straight track, and if it’s straight it’s also likely to be a 10 degree incline or…
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Day 13: Islay
First full day on Islay, an island of whisky, peat, and history. We did a bit of all three. We kicked off the day at Ardbeg, a distillery currently thriving but went through some challenging times through the 1970s to the late 1990s. Last time I was here they had not long restarted distilling, and I bought a bottle of their Very Young for about 25 pounds. I’ve had a lot of Ardbeg since then, of many expressions, and while I’ve enjoyed some more than others I’ve never had one that I haven’t found something good in. I’ve also never had an Ardbeg like the 4 that I tasted today.…
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Day 12: Oban, Islay (Kiells)
In which driving is done, a ferry is caught, whisky is drunk, purchases are made; also introducing Margaret the supergrass. Following a fairly decent breakfast at the Oyster Inn, we headed south, first to fill up with fuel and then to get cash, as, according to guides to Feis Ile, it isn’t unknown for electronic banking to fail, and ATMs to run out of money around this time. Then south we went. Time was on our side, so we had the opportunity to stop for a coffee in Tarbert, a little town by the sea (tarbert/tarbet translates as isthmus, so there are several scattered throughout Scotland). First was a coffee…
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Day 11: Portree, Oban (Connel)
Was a busy day of stops and travelling, so I set my alarm for just after 7am, and of course was awake at 6am. Google told me that Cafe Arriba, place of yesterday’s full breakfast, would open at 8am, so figured that I’d be right to grab breakfast there once I packed and sorted everything. I don’t know if today was some sort of special Tuesday, but breakfast was not to be: nowhere serving hot food appeared to be open at 8am in Portree today. Not even at 8.10am, when I grabbed a bread roll and some cheese slices from the Co-op supermarket. While Skye is indeed beautiful, I’m leaning…
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Day 10: Portree
The morning kicked off with my first full Scottish breakfast of the trip, basically all the good stuff: black pudding, bacon, potato bread, flat sausage, beans, egg, mushrooms, half a tomato, and toast. Happily, no white pudding to be seen, it’s been a while since I last tried this, but having had it several times, the best I could describe it is “meh”. P has been poking me to have some, so I’ve said I will if he does (he’s a vegetarian). Anyway, the breakfast was good, even if the cafe had a weird Spanish name and hints of Spanish food on the menu (we’re quite a way away from…
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Day 9: Inverness, Portree
A bit of a long day, with a bunch of driving, walking, and dealing with painful customer service. I’ve been getting around with Optus international roaming, at $5/day it’s a bit expensive but has convenience. They also recently changed it from the kind of clunky charging by the week or day, to now charging by the day with auto activation. So every day I’ve been getting a text message to tell me my roaming has been activated for another day. Except today, the messages all said they couldn’t process payment. I’m not full of cash, but know that my accounts can handle $5. Tried another account, no luck. A third,…
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Day 8: Inverness, Loch Ness
Our last full day in Inverness and, once I finish this entry, I’ll have caught up on the backlog of days. G wanted to have a quiet day pottering around the B&B and town, possibly a little burnt out from our “short trip to Dufftown” yesterday where he was the driver. M&P wanted to do some wandering around Loch Ness, so I happily joined them. We headed south, and were soon alongside the loch, traversing the Great Glen that basically splits the Scottish mainland into two bits. It’s certainly a very beautiful split, driving along Loch Ness if one stunning view after another, once the trees part. Our first stop…
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Day 7: Inverness, Culloden, Dufftown, Speyside
“A short trip to Dufftown”, words that will live in infamy almost as long as the Duke of Cumberland’s orders of “No quarter” at Culloden. Travelling with a member of Clan Donald, a visit to the battlefield of Culloden was on the itinerary. You won’t get a history lesson here, as a chunk of what I know is derived from reading the Dr Who novelisation of The Highlanders as a pre-teen. The visitor centre was a decent experience, more balanced than I expected, but I guess we’ve got to a point in time where we can interpret events like this with a more nuanced view, looking at world context, the…
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Day 6: Glasgow – Inverness
Writing this two days behind, while G, who has been part of the team keeping me up drinking some quality drams, complains that I’m not up to date. Last morning in Glasgow was uneventful, I did the usual wake up too early so was left with a bit of time to wait before I could check out of my room (they only had part-time reception and wanted to make sure I checked out properly). Turns out no one turned up at 9am so ended up lugging my bag in one hand up Bath St and calling them to let them know I was checking out. Met the gang at the…
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Day 5: Glasgow
Now where were we? Then it was walk, kebab, sleep, hangover. Welcome to Glasgow. Ah, I remember now. It was a rather slow morning, doing as little as possible while my liver and kidneys did what I brought them along to do, and the paracetamol kicked in to help some. I was upright and mostly human by around 11.30am, just a little too late to get the breakfast menu at the nearby Smile Cafe, but in time for the lunch menu including some amazing pizza by the slice. And when I say slice, they say 1/4 of a whole pizza. With this amount of salami and zucchini pizza, plus a…
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Days 4: Frankfurt-London-Glasgow
Early start in Frankfurt, as my flight to London was a 7am departure. I figured if I got to Frankfurt Hbf a little after 5am I’d be fine. It took me a little while longer than expected to get everything together, not helped by a crap night attempting to sleep while my brain kept poking me to make sure I didn’t oversleep and miss the flight, so I got the the station around 5.15am, still a comfortable amount of time in theory. I hadn’t accounted for the happens-more-often-than-expected thing that German trains sometimes do run late. Germans will joke about this, crazy as the concept seems. So I board the…
