Central Coast Senior

We left Glasgow and drove to the airport, our biggest concern, was what to do with all the whisky we (okay; I) bought. We managed to cram it into the bags and still make the weight limit, so that was good. In celebration we did the only sensible thing, we bought more whisky at the airport.

The flight was nice and non eventful and we landed in Dublin and caught a cab to our hotel. The Brooks. Nice hotel. Perfectly located in the City center and on a quiet street.  The room was quaint, we could even pick the firmness of our pillows!! Almost everything is perfect. It’s one weakness is the free Wi-Fi is almost completely useless. We needed to be in the perfect spot for it to be of any use.

We parked our bags in the room and then hit the streets. Boy I love Dublin, the energy of the city, the people are friendly and the streets are clean. We went to the Hairy Lemon for lunch, the food was good, they actually had a gluten free menu for us to use. We had the Irish stew and it was great!! I also managed to have the nectar of the gods.

Granted it was only one glass but it was heaven.  From there we wandered around the town, we went to the Temple Bar district and for a Saturday afternoon, early evening I was surprised at how restrained it was.  While we did wander around, for our first night we just enjoyed the city and had a peaceful time. We finished our night up back at the hotel bar where I sampled a few whiskeys and just relaxed. This is so we were ready for our full day on Sunday.

Sunday in Dublin, what a difference a day makes. The hustle and bustle we experienced on Saturday is non existent on a Sunday morning. The day in Dublin begins at noon on a Sunday.  We left our hotel a little after 11 and the streets were almost deserted. One can only assume that the city parties hard on Saturday and need to recover on a Sunday.

We took advantage of the quiet and began our hike to the Jameson Distillery tour which is located across the River Liffey in an older part of town. So we walked for an hour and finally made  it to the distillery. While we waited for the tour to start we took the opportunity to sample a local mixed drink using Jameson’s. Then the tour started with a short video and this is where Helen crushed my soul.

This was my second time at the tour and all I really wanted was to be selected as 1 of the 8 lucky winners who would be selected to conduct a whiskey tasting. 4 females and 4 males. So naturally Helen gets selected, which officially ended any hope I had of being selected. So for the next hour on the tour Helen is carrying the little green tube that is a constant reminder of how I failed; again.

The tasting is fixed. They take a Scotch, an American Whiskey, and a little Jamesons. The Scotch is Johnny Walker black, The US whiskey is Jack Daniels. I think for Scotch they had a lot better options they could have chosen instead of JWB, but I figure they didn’t want anything too good. And let’s face it a tripled distilled whiskey is always going to beat a single distilled one.  And sure enough, the JD couldn’t compete.

After the tour we had some lunch, not that good, at the distillery and then stocked up on our whiskey and then hit the road. Where Helen proceeds to just about gets run over by a horse drawn carriage. From there we walked along the river for a bit and then headed up to Christchurch for a few pictures. From there we headed back to the hotel, dropped off our bags and headed back to the pub for a little refreshment.

As we wandered around both Helen and I couldn’t believe how comfortable we felt in the city. Dublin is a beautiful city with a friendly environment where we could easily spend days just walking the streets and not doing anything. Except eating and drinking of course.

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Today we walked through Glasgow a bit. The city is truly a bustling city. We left our hotel and it wasn’t more than just a couple of blocks before we began to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in to.

We wandered around and went into one of the shopping districts and wandered through the jewelry district. Well maybe not a district, more like a shopping hall. It was one long corridor that had either diamond jewelry or watches in each shop. In many of the stores the prices were ridiculous. Most of it seemed overpriced compared to what we pay in the US for the same product. I think the people that live there thought the same thing. The streets outside were packed, the shopping hall not so much.

As we wandered through the city, I think the feeling we both had was that there was more to this city than we had planned on, but with the short amount of time we were there we never really had a chance to truly look around. Following is some of the sights of Glasgow that we did see.

I guess you know you haven’t done a city justice, when your highlight is PRINCESS PARKING at the hotel:

Today was another driving day. This time to get us to Glasgow, where we would wind up our little Scottish adventure. We left at 10:30 am and headed back the way we came just two days ago. The weather was rainy and overcast though I hoped it would make for some great photos on our drive down.

The drive from Isle of Skye was mainly down the A87 and A82 and through some of the most beautiful country in all of Scotland. I also discovered Scottish approach to signage on the highway. Sometimes they post signs that give you lots of warning about the turn coming up and other times it seemed like the notice was right at the intersection. Needless to say I overshot the mark a couple of times and then had to try and hunt up a spot to turn around.

The following is a gallery of the photos taken by Helen on our drive. For space sake I won’t post all 182 of them!

This second gallery are the photos from Loch Lomond, which is located outside of Glasgow and is a mecca for the summer crowds.

When we finally hit the M8 we knew we were close to Glasgow and here is where the driving became a bit more of a challenge. The entire time we were driving the GPS, for the most part played nice and then we hit Glasgow.

We happily followed it’s instructions for getting off the freeway and getting to our hotel and it was doing a great job, after all we could see the Marriott right there in front of us as we got off the freeway. Problem was, just like in Edinburgh there is a lot of construction going on in Glasgow too. And wouldn’t you know it, the road that the GPS wanted us to take was part of that construction. We didn’t realize it until, after following Instructions we were all the sudden back on the M8 heading back out of town.

So we hopped off at the next exit, reset the GPS and tried again. This time we covered the distance on surface streets. This has to be better right? Wrong, instead here is where my opportunity to get us killed comes up. As we followed the directions we came to a stop light under the overpass and the GPS tells us to take a right. Got it, right hand turn. I look up and on the cement post in front of me is a sign that says no Left turn, check no problem I am going right anyways. So following the GPS guidance, obeying the sign on the post, I turn right. Unfortunately the GPS and post meant that I was to follow those directions AFTER I passed the post. Instead I turned into on coming traffic.

Good news is there were only a couple of cars and they didn’t get excited, they must have clowns like me more often than they care to admit. I find a street that will let me get over to the correct side of the divided highway and I turn, bad news is, I am headed the wrong way again. Now this person I encountered was not happy, he laid into his horn for about 15 seconds, continuing even after we made it out of his way. But good news we are now on the right side of the street so all is good now and it’s back to the directions.

We follow the GPS directions and before we know it we are about to get back on the M8 out of town again, fortunately there was a little side street we shot down, which would have worked great if we had been staying at the Hilton which was at the bottom of this little street. But since we weren’t we had to turn around and make another attempt at getting to the hotel. This time we get to the M8 decision point and I decide to pull into a parking lot, figuring I would walk to the hotel and get them to tell me how to get to them. Fortunately, or so we thought, there was a very nice person working the lot who was happy to give us directions. He whips out his Iphone and proceeds to give us the same directions as the GPS!!

Finally I put myself in Helen’s hands and she ignores the GPS and helps us get to the hotel based on a little common sense and logic. Good news is I think I only broke one more traffic law accomplishing it. But at least we got there.

Today we toured the Island of Skye, I finally made it to a distillery, Talliskers,

We then just drove around and saw the scenery. I have seen enough sheep to last me a life time. Fortunately I was able to keep Helen in the car so there are no missing baby sheep. Driving here was challenging. For about 20 miles I was on a one lane road that serviced two way traffic. You had to make sure one of you reached a small turnout in order for the other car to pass. I think if it hadn’t been for the sheep Helen would have freaked. For lunch we stopped in the city of Portree and went to a place called the The Café.

This place had the most interesting approach to customer service.  You walk in and the two gals working there look up at you and then go back to what they are doing. It turns out you are supposed to seat yourself.  Now there is no sign telling you that’s the approach, they just wait patiently for you to figure it out on your own.

Then the gal comes up to take our order and Helen says I haven’t looked at the men… she doesn’t even get to finish before the gal says okay and takes off. I have to yell at her to comeback and at least get our drink orders. She finally takes our order, they deliver the food and we eat. My Wild Boar burger (no bun) was good and Helen’s fish and chips were okay as well. Soooooo we finish our meal and wait for them to come back and clear the table on give us the check. Wrong again. When complete you are supposed to go to them and they will give you your check so you can pay the bill while you are standing there. Okay.

So now that our tummies are full, we  climb into the car and truly begin our tour of the Isle of Skye. In this instance I think pictures can do a way better job then I could in showing you what we saw. So without further rambling Skye:

Today we left Aberdeen headed for the Isle of Skye. After yesterday, I am secretly watching to make sure that I get in a Whisky Distillery today as we drive the 100 plus miles to our Hotel in Kyleakin. My only fear is what will the GPS have in store for us today. After yesterday, I am just waiting for it to send us down some sheep trail.

We managed to get our luggage down the 3 flights of narrow stairs without killing ourselves, we loaded them into the car and went off for our breakfast. With that behind us, we climbed in the car and took off. Good news the GPS decided to play nice.  Although I was really getting tired of it telling me to take the 2nd Exit at the Roundabout.  Whatever happened to just going straight? Or stay on the A90, or any normal thing like that? Instead of the incessant Roundabout chatter? Granted it was only in the cities that this really became annoying.  But still, after the 30th or 40th time it just gets old.

While we are driving I am keeping my eyes open for a distillery. Success, there is one just a 1/2 mile off our main path. So I take the turn and tell Helen we are heading to a distillery. She smiles says fine and in seconds we are there.  As we pull up the first thing we notice is that the visitor lot is empty, the next thing I notice is that this distillery doesn’t sell a standalone Scotch. Instead it’s a major contributor to the Chivas Regal blend. BORING!!! So we don’t stop as I know we will passing other distilleries on our way to Loch Ness and Isle of Skye.

Well that turned out to be overly optimistic on my part. We did pass other distilleries, every time we came to a turnoff for one, the sign basically said it would an hour of drive time just to get to it and back on track. With a tour that would be two more hours of driving added to the trip. No Thank You. So today we will not be visiting a distillery, thankfully I have Nessie to look forward to.

As we are approaching Inverness I see a sign for Kilravock Castle, I immediately take the turn, so Helen can take a picture or two for her Hairdresser, Christie. It turns out that her family is part of the heritage for that Castle. So we drive back through the farms and come to the castle, and just like yesterday at Fyvie, the front is not that impressive. But we take the pictures and head on.

So we can tell we are getting close to Loch Ness, Everything is named Ness and telling us to take their boat tour of the loch. This is all okay, it’s what you would expect for a tourist trap. I think it hit rock bottom when about a mile in land from the lake we find the Loch Ness Monster Tourist center. So of course we had to stop, we used the bathrooms, we then climbed back into the car and drove to the castle ruin we saw ahead of us. I guess the other good thing was that I happened to be in the right place at the right time and took a quick snapshot of Nessie, I could become famous!!

We pulled up to Urquehart Castle, in the rain, but decided that we would brave the elements and go give it a look. It was a smart decision on our part. We spent two hours there and with the help of Stuart, one of the staff, we learned a lot. I just wish it had been a lot less rainy and windy. By the time we were done, we were soaked, frozen, and happy we took the chance.

When we left the drive to Skye was through some of the most incredibly beautiful country we had seen in a while.

I am hoping on our return trip that we will be able to stop and take some incredible pictures. We at least enjoyed the drive and when we made it to The White Heather Hotel, it’s a B&B in Kyleakin run by Gillian and Craig, two great people running a great establishment.

Well to get th important statistics out of the way. At the end my driving ended up with 0 cars, 0 curbs, 0 people, and 0 animals. In other words I managed to not hit anything for one day. Obviously I am off to an awesome start. Monday will be tougher as we will be visiting castles and a distillery, which probably mean smaller roads.

Driving in Scotland can be summed up in a single word – civilized. There were no wild drivers, everyone pulled to the left and kept the right lane clear for faster cars, which I was only occasionally. I’m not sure they could survive driving in the states. Especially in LA or New York.

My only real issue was that if I didn’t pay close attention, I found my self drifting to the left as I tried to line myself up with left hand line. Not too smart when the steering wheel is on the right. I probably only scared Helen 4 or 5 times, and learned that she really doesn’t like looking out her window and see a big Lorry inches from her face.

Also learned that Nokia Here Drive Beta sucks. I installed it on my phone with the intention of using it as our Nav software while here in the UK. Surprise!! Because I don’t have a Nokia phone I am only authorized to use their software in the states. So here we are 5000 miles from home and wondering how we are going to get around. Fortunately I found an App that will read the Nokia Maps and use them for Navigation. This eventually worked fine. Although when we first started using it, Left was Right and Right was Left. This made driving VERY confusing for awhile. It eventually sorted itself out and now all is right with the world.

In Aberdeen, we checked into our Hotel – The Skene House Whitehall, we were given a tour of the bellman offered to help us get our luggage from the car and show us to our room. That was nice, especially when he told us we were on the 3rd floor and there was no elevator. Now for you uninitiated in Europe the Ground Floor is not the 1st floor, it’s the Ground Floor. This means we had to haul luggage up 3 flights of stairs.  Being Double O (Old and Out of Shape) this was not a fun prospect. Fortunately he took the heavy bag and I managed to drag mine upstairs without collapsing.

Or room is very Scandinavian like, which is different. But for the most part okay. After dropping the bags off we headed downstairs to the front desk to ask for recommendations for places to eat. Turns out it’s not something any other guest has ever done. Well that’s what I assumed based on the deer in the headlights look we received from both people behind the counter. Fortunately after a little coaxing they sent us off in a good direction and we found an interesting Tapas Restaurant/Bar. Where we walked into an establishment that had room for over a hundred and we brought the non staff population up to 2. A little disturbing. But the food was okay. More on that on my Celiac page later.

So now off to the Castles.

Well got up this morning so we could start our drive through Scotland only to find out that they can’t get a cab to our hotel. The Rock n Roll Half Marathon has made it impossible for a Cab to get to the hotel. So I go on line and sure enough we are surrounded, with no way out. And being the completely lazy soul that I am, I refuse to drag my suitcase literally through the half marathoners to get catch a cab.

So we will just sit tight at the hotel and wait for the race to end.

So here is the start of our second full day in Edinburgh. Today Edinburgh showed us a completely different side of itself and it was a joy to behold. I guess the big secret is Sunshine!! Today the sun came out and the city looked 100% better. It probably didn’t hurt that we took a short cut to the Royal Mile (I followed directions) and we were there in 15 minutes. The operative word is still construction, the good news is most of it was up at the Edinburgh Castle end. Though I am still trying to figure out what one of the workers was doing. He was sitting on his butt and tapping at one of the finished bricks. He would hit it a few times, look at it quizzically, and then hit it again. Maybe it just made him happy.

Because it was the weekend, the royal mile was more of a royal pain around Edinburgh Castle, there were people everywhere. Part of it may have been just because the sun had come out and people were excited. Don’t know for sure but the views at the castle were much improved over yesterday.

So we started off from the castle and headed down the Royal Mile on our way to Holyrood Palace, the Scottish home for the Royal Family. Well the trip there was certainly easy, it was all downhill!! As we walked the street you typically passed either a Whisky shop, a tourist trap, a Tartan Shop, Celtic Jewelry, and every once in a while an actual restaurant. Every so often you would be surprised by a unique shop. We walked in to one only because it had Gluten Free on it’s window. Turns out the shop, Cranachan & Crowdie, is owned by a lady from the foreign land of Arizona! We chatted for a bit and ended up buying some GF cookies for when we are in the car.

It was fun peering down alleys or around corners because it was amazing what you could see. From Monuments on the hillside to hidden gardens. If you just walked down the road you would miss it all. The one thing you wouldn’t miss is gravestones. As you got closer to the Palace you seemed to come across more and more cemetaries. We passed one cemetery that was the final resting place for Adam Smith, I let the Economics students explain who he is.

We did enter the only fudge shop on the Royal Mile and brought a few samples, for testing purposes only of course. Eventually we reached the palace. We signed up for both the palace tour and the Queens Gallery, so another 33 pounds later we were off to the castle. Nice thing is this tour is not as strict as the tour at Buckingham Palace, where you are practically under guard the entire time. Here you were given your own audio guide with the admonishment that there was no photography inside the castle.

That hill in the last picture is called Arthurs Seat, and is an extinct volcano (or are they just hoping?) Seems like a funny place to build a palace.

Well for the tour we were allowed to see many of the rooms used by her highness when she was hosting various functions. We also were shown the kings bedchamber which I am sure no one actually uses anymore. One thing I noticed on the tour is that for the path that they let us visitors use, they would roll up the original carpet and have us walk on the hardwood floors.

Another thing we noticed is that some folks seemed to be doing the tour to check it off their lists. I mean we listened to everything in the guide and out of all the different folks that started near when we did, they were long gone by the time we made it to the abbey. Now the abbey is interesting as it is in need of a lot of TLC. It’s basically just a skeleton of the building with no roof. Impressive as all heck, but it’s funny that this thing would still be attached to the palace and left in it’s ancient state.

So after touring the abbey and empty gardens we were off to the Queens gallery for a resounding presentation on the first time a photographer followed the prince on his walk about through the Ottoman Empire.

Probably the most interesting things was seeing a picture of the Sphinx buried almost up to it’s head and looking no where near as good as it does today and then pictures of the Parthenon long before anyone made an attempt at restoring it. Other than that it was not that exciting. So we left the gallery and decided to head back to our hotel. Our own problem with that is the best way back meant returning up the Royal Mile, so now that downhill had become an incredibly long uphill. And I am personally hoping that the Rock n Roll Half Marathoners tomorrow are going to be running down the Royal Mile and not up it. Because that would suck. Walking up that road made me feel every day of my 57 years. Though I am going to blame it on jet lag and see if I can get away with it.

So now we are back in our hotel, the party on the floor above us has finally ended and we have silence, and we can prepare for the white knuckle adventure that begins tomorrow. I pick up the rental car and we will start our drive through the Scottish Countryside.

I don’t think Helen is too worried, after all it’s been 8 years since I had my head on collision in Northern England….

After our first day of exploring the city of Edinburgh two words pop into mind. Trash and Construction. It seemed like every corner we went around we would always find one of the two. I even took the time to let Helen see parts of the city unseen by the typical tourist and still we saw trash and construction. Now this little side jaunt I took Helen on, she will tell you I got lost, that couldn’t be closer to the truth. I always now where I am, I may not be sure how I got there or how I get out of there, but I always know where I am!!!!

I mean how many side trips include big stinky piles of dog crap? This isn’t something you see every day when you are touring tourist locations, but I was able to find it, and step in it…So how is that for the Scottish experience? Anyways after I had determined we had spent enough time on side explorations, I finally lead Helen to Edinburgh Castle. It is beautiful and massive and at the top of way too many steps if you come at it from the side

We toured the castle and it was worth 33 Pounds, for the most part. After all when was the last time you saw a Dog Cemetery in a castle?  The one thing that was truly impressive was the importance that the Scotts placed in the military heritage. Every exhibit we saw talked to the military and their contribution to the British Empire. While it was interesting at first, after a while it lost some of it’s impact.

The castle grounds are HUGE, I couldn’t believe how much was behind the stonewalls. I have uploaded some of the photos and while it was gray and overcast, I really could see how beautiful the skyline must be on a sunny and clear day. After 3 hours we took our leave of the castle and began to hike the Royal Mile. We will go back tomorrow to finish and I hope it is more interesting that what we saw today. We will see.

Just hope I don’t step in it again.