Saturday, January 11, 2014

scotland adventure, part two

Our next stop on our Scotland weekend road trip was the famous Edinburgh!
To say we fell in love with this charming and historical city would be an understatement. We spent a day and a half in Edinburgh and were able to squeeze in most everything that we wanted to see.
You could definitely spend more then a weekend exploring this area, but if it's all the time you have (like us) here are some main stops/highlights that we hit.
We stayed right in the heart of Old Town, that way we could pretty much walk everywhere we wanted to go, including Edinburgh Castle. See more on Old Town here. I definitely recommend staying there if you want to be close to everything. We loved the location.
 
However, I don't recommend the hotel we stayed at. It was fine, but nothing great and it had a weird atmosphere. It was more like an apartment building rather than a hotel, but it was very clean and it was a lot of space for the amount of money we spent. 
 
Also, they ended up double charging our credit card in the end and we had to deal with that once we got back to the states. It has good reviews on Booking.com, but we wouldn't recommend it--The Holyrood Aparthotel
 
 
Okay, now back to the fun stuff!

Look at those charming roads! Oh my, I fell in love with that place...and that handsome guy in the middle too :)
 
Just make sure to check the weather and dress accordingly--it's usually pretty grey from what I hear. We got lucky with some blue skies, but it was still a very chilly trip!
Some stops to make in Old Town:
Edinburgh Castle

(P.S. People were not actually taking pictures with this bagpipe player...in fact, the crowd was mainly just standing around listening, but Rob insisted on hopping on in there ha ha. That's one of the many reasons why I love him. He never cares what other people think)

Something about the grey buildings and streets with those colored doors! How charming, right?!

Walking this area will definitely give you a work out. Old Town is up on a large hill, close to the castle which is at the very top of the hill. So you'll be walking up and down a lot of streets.

So Scottish :)
 
(One of the reasons we recommend staying close to Old Town--all of these sites are just about a 5-10 minute walk and it can save you on some cab fees)

Up next, we drove our rental car out to Campbell Castle. It was a bit of a drive, but the countryside was so beautiful we didn't mind at all--plus this was the place of my husband's ancestors! It was so cool to see and explore.
 
It is a small walk/hike from the parking lot to the castle, but it's nothing to be concerned about. Just wear some shoes that won't be ruined if they get a little muddy. Also, take some time to talk to the park ranger/attendant at the front. The man that was there when we visited told us some really interesting facts!
 

 Stunning, right?
View from the top, looking down on the small village below.



Up next, we went to Stirling Castle.
Here is a picture of Robert on top and then a view of the castle graveyard.
After visiting Stirling Castle leave some time to visit Wallace Monument, it is probably 5-10 minutes away and is the monument for William Wallace (aka Braveheart)
We didn't have time to hike up to the monument, but we did stop and take pictures from below.
 
 

We picked a great weekend to go. It was still a bit cold and a tiny bit of rain, but we had some really blue skies and it was absolutely gorgeous.
It was one of our favorite weekend trips while over in the UK. Once we finished up our day, we went back to Edinburgh and turned in our rental car and then caught a 10pm train back to London.
 
I loved this adventure, and we loved driving it in the car. My only word of caution is for anyone uncomfortable with opposite side of the road driving, it may be a little stressful but we got used to it really quickly and it wasn't a big deal.
 Please let me know if you have any questions or insights that you'd like to share. We obviously didn't get to see everything or spend as much time at certain destinations as we would have liked, but overall we were very pleased with our trip!

9 comments:

  1. Question - Does your scottish husband have any scottish available/single brothers or cousins, and or uncles if they are younger than 50. lol jk. Your trip looks wonderful! I was there in September 2013 and I loved, loved Endinburgh!!! Scotland was wonderful! I can totally live there.

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    Replies
    1. Ha ha, I will have to look into that! We know he has some extended/distant family scattered around Scotland, but I'm not sure on ages ;) He does have one single brother here in the states though ha ha. And I agree with you! I could definitely live there. Scotland was in our top favorite trips! We are planning on going back sometime in the future! :)

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  2. What time of the year did you go?

    And you have beautiful pictures and wonderful narrative. Thanks for posting! :)

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  3. Same question as above... In what month did you visit Scotland?

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  4. Being in Scotland for a tour is awesome and during a UK trip, we can get some time to travel to Scotland as well. I like the Scottish pipe band. They really play it well.
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