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Having paired-up well out of my league, I am recently returned from a trip to Scotland, superbly and methodically planned by my inamorata, the fair Catherine. My tasks were to secure flights to and from and to see to the rental car (and the driving—more on that later). With some general input from me (“I would like to see castles and stay in converted castles/manors”) she then created what turned out to be a (predictably, given her skill in such things) perfect, eight-day feast of castles, manors, gardens, gluttony, and some of the most stunning scenery available. Long standing and attentive readers (I just stole this line from the World’s Best History Podcast host) know that I consider you to be a cut above average, and so I do not need to tell you that Scotland is beautiful. With this little essay, I hope to share with you some of the specifics of my visit and some of my thoughts along the way. I’m beginning to write this in the early morning after returning, my internal clock working its way back to Eastern time, and so if there isn’t a caption on the photo, it is because of my addled memory and not wishing to wake Catherine for help.
General Scheme of Maneuver
We had direct flights from Dulles to Edinburgh on the 2-4-2 configured United Economy Plus cabins (we grabbed a port side “2”), seating afforded us in recompense for hours of business travel. Economy Plus gets you a little more leg room and a little more tilt, both of which are appreciated for flights of this length, even for fun-sized humans like us (don’t get me started on reclining seats. I own that airspace behind me, and you own the airspace under me). We flew overnight, and so shortly after takeoff, I bid Catherine goodnight and went to sleep, grabbing nearly four hours of it before watching a few tablet-downloaded episodes of this season of “Peaky Blinders” (fantastic, by the way). We landed, worked our way semi-efficiently through customs (they have this facial recognition system that worked for me but not for Catherine, so she had to go get in line for the old school check-in), and ventured out to find our rental car.
Michael (from Poland, a delight) checked us in and delivered unto us the keys to our car, which we then located and loaded with our bags. It is here that I must warn readers of an important fact. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car in the UK. Yes. I know that you know this, but you know it mostly “sort of”, not in an experiential way. It really is difficult to un-program one’s mind in order to get into the correct side of the car, at least at first.
The second thing to keep in mind, is that not only is the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car, BUT THEY DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD. Again. I know that you know this. But until you are actually DOING it, it is difficult to conceive of how unsettling this fact is. I was the only driver on record for this trip, as I did not include Catherine as a driver in part due to my pre-Cambrian sense of gender roles and in part due to my desire for her to enjoy the scenery better. This—it turns out, was a dubious decision, as I managed within the first hour of driving to ascertain where the port-side curb was using the car’s left front tire, and though I improved over the course of our trip, I will be nominating Catherine for a suitable decoration for bravery in recognition of the pure terror she must have felt through a goodly portion of our drives. At one point, I said screw it, and gave her the wheel for what would be the last three miles of a particularly stressful bit of driving, which was another mistake—not that she wasn’t competent mind you. It was that I was TERRIFIED to be in that seat driving on THOSE ROADS with their soft shoulders and omnipresent potholes and fall-offs, and I came away from that experience in awe of Catherine’s poise and civility whilst passengering.
The main roads are fine. Enjoyable, in fact. But much of our driving was on two lane roads of varying widths, excessively high speed limits for the given width, and countless blind summits and blind curves. My unscientific assessment was that less than ten percent of the vehicles driving in Scotland were large tour busses and large trucks, but one’s chances of meeting such vehicles in narrow blind curves approached fifty percent. Seriously.
Adding to this driving experience was the fact that some other helpful driver of our car had set the navigation system to “Avoid Motorways”, which we only discovered two-thirds of our way into the trip. This little feature is (I suspect) responsible for the 140 miles difference in the screenshot above (a direct representation of the general waypoints of our visit) and the mileage accumulated according to the bill. It also accounts for the several years of life that have been shaved by driving on countless ONE LANE roads with little way-stations one pulls off into to allow oncoming traffic to pass. The quality of these roads was bad enough—but if you stayed in the middle, you were generally in good shape. Except that there were lots of potholes in the middle, and any real swerve to avoid them took you dangerously close to the already crumbling edge of the road surface and a potentially horrible flat tire/bottoming out experience.
The bottom line is that on our next trip, Catherine will be doing some of the driving, and Bryan will be taking sedatives and choosing rail travel. In all honesty, I missed a great deal of beautiful scenery while driving because of my hyper-focus on the road and my poor decision making. Lesson learned.
This screenshot reproduces the general route we took on this trip. We drove counterclockwise, striking out North through the heart of Scotland into the Highlands for a couple of days, then out to the Isle of Skye for a couple of days, then back down through the west for a bit, then a couple of memorable nights in Edinburgh before flying home. As you can see, great portions of Scotland were missed, and we spent a good bit of time discussing how we would work them into our already being planned next trip to Scotland.
Part One: Up the Middle
We drove from the airport north through the center of Scotland stopping for our first night in Pitlochry, a great little town that we agreed would be worth coming back to. But before that stop, we tackled our first castle, Glamis, and it was lovely. We toured the castle and its grounds and had a bite of lunch.
After visiting Glamis, we headed north to overnight at the Atholl Palace Hotel, a beautiful converted manor house with lovely grounds. Proper breakfast was included in the room cost at each place we stayed, and by proper, I mean exceptional. The UK does breakfast right, and our first breakfast was a gluttonous buffet which for me included scone, clotted cream, proper bacon, pork sausage, mushrooms, haggis, blood pudding, and poached eggs. I would repeat this performance most of the breakfasts to follow, although I did drop blood pudding from the lineup, not out of taste, but out of concern for deadly-sin level eating. We will not discuss what comprises haggis, I will only say that it is worth getting over as I found it quite tasty indeed. But the real insight I gained in this trip was to re-acquaint myself with the joys and wonders of clotted cream. I had tasted it before, but in my everyday American dietary life, I try (and fail) to avoid breads and rolls and so clotted cream isn’t a part of the lineup. I declared at the start of this trip that no food would be off-limits, and so scones and clotted cream became great hits. Let me also rise in favor of the simple scone. From what I can tell, we’re talking flour, butter, egg, milk, salt, and sugar, but the result is a delight. I may try my hand at baking them myself.
Up early, we then tackled what would turn out to be our fullest day, with stops at three castles (Blair Atholl, Cawdor, and Urquhart) We then drove North toward the second night’s stop at the Coul House Hotel, which I enthusiastically reviewed here. We had a delightful dinner and after-dinner walk around the grounds, which were beautiful. The proprietors raised two daughters here, and little paths through the woods they and the gardener created were magical. It was here that we came to realize that rhododendron—which are prized in American yards and gardens—is essentially a weed in Scotland, as we saw it virtually everywhere. Foxglove too. Any country with beautiful flowers growing in the wild is ok with me. Below is a series of photos from this portion of our trip.
Thus ended the first phase of our trip which delivered us into the second phase encompassing a lot of driving in bad weather on bad roads deep out onto the Isle of Skye. Skye was interesting—the scenery reminded me a bit of driving across country, in the American west, except that things were a good bit greener. We made our way up to the Northern part of the Isle for an overnight at The Flodigarry Hotel, which commands a beautiful view of what I believe are North Sea approaches. Our room at Flodigarry was pretty amazing, a detached dwelling with great views from the deep, well-placed bathtub. Our previous two nights were in very nice places, mind you, but for this night Catherine out-did herself. Each day, we would have a little discussion about what lodging we liked best, or what castle we liked best, and when we left Flodigarry, Catherine was convinced that it was the best room, but I remained loyal to Coul House. If you find yourself visiting Skye, definitely eat at the Flodigarry Hotel Restaurant. Our dinner was flat out gourmet, and breakfast was predictably wonderful. We left and headed for a drive around Northern Skye to visit Dunvegan Castle, which had not been on the itinerary but which we thought we should not pass up. The gardens at Dunvegan were also sublime (I was particularly taken by the vegetable patch), and we passed a goodly amount of time here before driving across to Portree for the night (it was on this leg that I turned the wheel over to Catherine, only to terrify myself). Here are some shots from Skye:
From Skye, we began the third and final phase of our journey which took us down through the western highlands to eventually arrive at Edinburgh. Several trip highlights occurred in this, my favorite stretch of the trip. The first was what I believe to be my first proper “High Tea”, which we took at Inverlochy Castle, a spot we were unable to get a room (two night minimum, natch), but were able to get a tea reservation. Not having much experience with proper “high tea”, I was not prepared for the gorging that was available to one—finger sandwiches, scones and clotted cream (yum), cakes and sweets, not to mention tea (Catherine) and coffee (me). Between UK breakfasts and tea, an average human’s daily calorie count is vastly exceeded, with lunch and dinner not yet accounted for.
Moving on, we drove to our stop for the night, The Ballachulish Hotel. The pressure was on here, as this was one place I suggested to the trip planner. Upon arriving and approaching the front desk, I was dubious. The website does a marvelous job of conveying the best of the place, but I suppose I wasn’t ready for the road right out front between the hotel and the water, nor was I ready for the dark, musty sitting rooms downstairs. We had to wait a little (we were early) for a room, so by the time we got to the room I was thinking that my one contribution to the itinerary was a fail—but then we got to the room, and Catherine squealed with delight at how much she liked it and its views, declaring it second only to Flodigarry.
After our walk along the shore and the required blow-dryer drying of my only pair of shoes, we headed out for dinner at a place twenty minutes away called The Kingshouse Hotel. The views here were unbelievable, and Catherine declared her meal “the best meal I have ever had”.
Arising on Saturday, 18 June), we began the third and final part of the trip which took us down through the western highlands and then across to Edinburgh for our final two nights. Along the way, we stopped at Inveraray Castle, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. Here’s a bit of their home. You may remember it as “Shrimpie’s” place in Downton Abbey.
Edinburgh was my absolute favorite part of the trip. Keep in mind, I was white-knuckling through most of Scotland, so I really didn’t enjoy the scenery as I might have. Edinburgh was different. First of all, Catherine booked us in two utterly wonderful spots, The Witchery and Prestonfield House. It was in this part of the trip that I realized how hard the last two years had been on me and us, the relative immobility, the cooped-up-ed-ness and the restraints—both external and internal—that had been placed on our wanderlust. These properties were gorgeous, and the opportunity to stay in them for a night each is something I will forever be grateful for. Walking around Edinburgh, having a proper pub dinner, ducking into little shops—all of it made for a really fantastic wrap up to a great trip.
Key Take-aways For Me On Scotland
Although we had periods of really nice weather, there was no shortage of rain. Be prepared and just muddle through. Most times, it passed over.
It is a land of incomparable beauty, so find a way to ensure that you can enjoy it. If like me you are not a confident UK style driver, don’t drive.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that is very much the Scottish way. There is however, no prize for eating everything on your plate, every time.
We stayed in some luxe places and some not-so-luxe places. Because a place is old and grand does not mean it is a budget killer. There are a LOT of such places.
If you like cashmere and tweed, you will find it everywhere. Consider bringing along an empty-ish suitcase if you think you’ll be tempted, because it is tempting.
Finally, On Dobbs
I began over the weekend writing a proper post on this subject and have now deleted it. Not because I didn’t have anything important to say, but because I have nothing NEW to say. Much smarter and more eloquent writers than I can explain the tragic Constitutional mistake that was Roe, then Casey. The smartest and most eloquent of whom presumably collaborated in the majority opinion. I don’t want to get into arguments with people on this subject, because very few will have done the hard work of reading the opinions in this decision, including the dissent. Additionally, since my objections to Roe and Casey were not morally-based, but legally-based, my writing and thinking on the subject tends to clash with those who base their objections on the moral questions, pro-life and pro-choice and or emotion. Or who find the past fifty years of experience to be profoundly important whilst ignoring the previous 184. Emotions are just too high, and so I think I’ll skip this.
That was wonderful Bryan, thanks for sharing your experiences in Scotland. It looked amazing.