Today will be the last blog about my trip to Scotland, and will deal with random things I haven't blogged about yet.
One of the places my brother and I went was the Clava Cairns outside of Inverness
The Clava Cairns were the inspiration for the TV show "Outlander" . My brother had watched the show before we went, but I had not.
So...I just touched the stone like nothing could happen.
Thankfully there wasn't a repeat of what happened in the TV show....in the show the person travels back in time after touching the stone. note: I've watched a couple of episodes since I've been back.
Just some odd ruins, although unlike the TV show, they don't OVERLOOK Inverness.
Speaking of inspiring locations....this location in Edinburgh inspired JK Rowling to write about Diagonally (the wizard shopping area).
Also, just up the street a bit is a place that calls itself "The Birthplace of Harry Potter". The Elephant house is a tea/coffee shop where JK Rowling wrote some of the original Harry Potter.
Speaking of legendary stuff....one night we stayed at a Hotel, where our room had a view of the famous Loch Ness!
Outside the hotel, they had a replica of Nessie
My brother and I did walk down to Loch Ness, and touched the water....and we MAY have seen something
I also got a kick out of the Loch Ness Forecasting Stone outside our hotel
One of the impromptu things we did on the trip, was play some Disc Golf! On our way to the Glen Livet distillery(see Scotland blog 3), we saw a sign for frisbee golf. So after our Glen Livet tour, we played the 9 hole course.
I didn't do very well, because I didn't bring my discs...we got to "Borrow" one from the folks that ran the course. Oddly enough, the disc golf course was also a par 3 Golf course & a Football Course. (Football, is where you kick a ball into a hole in the ground)
Still it was fun to play in Scotland, since I play at least once a week here in Aggieland.
Another thing we did in Scotland was to try the local cuisine....including Haggis!
We got the "Haggis, Neeps & Tatties" Appetizer early on in the trip, so we would get a taste of Haggis. I didn't think it was bad, while my brother actually liked it.
Later, I actually got it on a pizza (with other meats)
Another thing we ate on the trip, was the typical Scottish Breakfast.
It was interesting, several of the hotels we booked came with FREE breakfast in the morning. So the granola bars we had bought just sat in the box most the trip.
Speaking of free with the hotel...the place we stayed at in Glasgow came with a free minibar!
Now the liquor bottles weren't filled, but we could have a couple of drinks out of it.
Another interesting we found about the various hotels we stayed at, was the height of the bathtub!
As you can see from the pic, the tub is about up to my waist! It made getting OUT of the shower an adventure. Especially at that hotel, where it was even more of a step down.
Another interesting thing about Scotland is the driving!
Not only did my brother have to drive on the opposite side of the road, from the opposite side of the car (Thankfully he did all the driving), but we went on several roads like the one above.
The road above, is a 2-way road, that is just 1 lane. Occasionally they would have an area where you could pull aside, which if there is a car coming from the other direction, we had to pull into and wait. Thankfully the longest stretch we had of those type roads was only 10 miles. BUT, most of our hiking trails we went to, had us driving on those crazy roads.
Also Scotland has SEVERAL roundabouts, so we had to play close attention to the driving directions from my phone. And one last thing about driving, was the lights. In Scotland, the Red lights would turn Yellow BEFORE they turned Green. So not only do you get a warning that the light is about to turn red (like here in the states), but also a warning that it's about to turn Green. That was a feature we liked!
Because of the crazy driving, when we were in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, we either walked to where we wanted to go, OR we took a sightseeing bus.
The sightseeing bus was a hop on hop off bus, so you pay a fee and get to use it for 24 hours. It was a fun way to see the city, and we also used it like a taxi. ha!
One last place we went in Glasgow was the Cathedral
The cathedral was also used in the TV show "Outlander" We thought the stained glass window was interesting, because it mentioned Coopers and Maltmen (people needed to make Whisky)
We got a nice view of the Cathedral from the Acropolis Cemetery nearby.
Well, that's all I got for you on my Scotland trip. Definitely a fun trip!
Thanks for reading my blog!
I'll be BAAACK tomorrow!
K.C.-ya!