Scotland

Monday morning (22nd), we set off around 10:15 for Scotland. It was us with two kids in our "estate" Mercedes and the Kruppa Srs with one kid in a rental compact. Shortly before leaving, I tossed a whole bunch of food stuff into boxes including a very large turkey for Christmas dinner. I knew we were in for a long trip when our first toilet stop was 45 minutes later. Then of course, it was another stop for lunch down the road. After lunch we managed to eek out an hour and a half before stopping again. Then we hit traffic around Manchester which slowed us down for a while. But the hours eventually did pass and we hit Scotland at Gretna Green, unfortunately missing the exit for our route. I was supposed to be navigating, but the lady from Edinburgh Castle had called me back right in those moments and I became distracted until we were right on the junction. We then wound our way down a B road to connect back with our route. Now, when I say B road, you must picture a narrow, winding, country road with loads of hairpin turns and hedges on either side of the road. Anyway, our journey did eventually bring us to Scotland's west coast. We then decided to stop and eat dinner shortly before we reached our place. We were the only customers at the Black Bull that cold dark night. Thus fortified, we drove down a few more one-lane, twisting roads complete with hair-pin turns and sheep-crossing grates until we reached the middle of nowhere. Our place proved to be two 3-bedroom bungalows and we unpacked and settled in.

Tuesday morning, Bill felt pretty sick and decided to stay in. The rest of us went for a drive up the coast to explore the area. We wound our way from the middle of nowhere (Dailly) out to Ayr then on to Largs. It was quite a cloudy afternoon and pretty windy down by the ocean, so our explorations were abbreviated. At Largs, you can catch a ferry over to an island, but we decided against doing that. We then took our cold selves back home for some R&R and dinner.

Wednesday was our big outing to Edinburgh Castle. Edinburgh was about a two hour drive from our place, so we left at about 8:30 that morning. After parking in a nearby garage, we began our trek up to the castle. I say up because when you arrive at the castle area, it is perched up high on a hill above and you have to climb significantly to get up there.

We strolled across a bridge, and past a large fountain, then down a wide lane flanked with gardens (somewhat winter-bare). Then, it was onto the streets of Edinburgh, steadily climbing uphill - one of the roads was appropriately named The Mound. Views of the city were wonderful. Finally, a little breathless, we arrived in the castle courtyard.

Our tour of Edinburgh Castle was in general a real highlight! The castle is huge and has many areas to explore. Along the walls, you could view the entire city spread out before you. Beyond that to the west you could see for many miles over to Ben Lomond and surrounding mountains. Over to the north and east-ish, you could view surrounding hills and ocean. It was amazing despite the grayish skies and very easy to see why the castle's location was prime for fortification.

We toured through a chapel that is the oldest building in Scotland, a building honoring dead soldiers, the Royal apartments (Queen Mary would have lived in these apartments), the building containing the Crown Jewels of Scotland and the Stone of Destiny (this is the stone that Jacob supposedly slept on and that every monarch has had under the coronation throne as they were crowned), and the Great Hall. We also ate lunch in a cafe there near those buildings where I partook of my first mince pie ever. I thought it was very tasty. Then it was onward through the dungeons and a few other buildings including another military type of museum. Hours later, we determined we had seen almost everything and definitely enough, so we headed on out.

Then we headed down the Royal Mile, going first into the store where tartans are made and they have an actual tour of the mills downstairs. We then continued further with a brief stop for a few in the writer's museum (something about Robert Burns). Then we detoured over to the Royal Museum to view some great exhibits from Scottish history. After all that, we exhaustedly plopped ourselves down at a Mexican restaurant for dinner before heading back to our place.

The next day was Christmas and the first order of business was for Andrew and Tjitske to be picked up at the airport. I started cooking the giant turkey. Despite not being at home, we were able to produce a wonderful Christmas dinner feast, followed by present-opening for the children.

The next day, I managed to sleep long in the morning which was great! Late morning, we all headed out to a nearby castle ruin - Dulquharran. The drive was about a mile or so away, and then we walked along the muddy road leading to the castle for about another mile. This castle was once magnificent, I am sure. Now, it is an empty carcass, surrounded by tall fencing to keep people out.

After lunch, we headed out to nearby Culzean Castle. This castle is located high on the cliffs of the ocean overlooking the Firth of Clyde. It is ranked as the second-best castle in Scotland, after Edinburgh Castle. The castle grounds are extensive and are now a country park open to the public. There is a fountain garden, , a walled garden, a swan lake, a cliff walk, a deer park, an aviary, thousands of acres of woodland walking paths, and a few thousand feet of beachfront. The castle itself was closed for the winter season, but we were able to tour around all the castle buildings. You cross a very picturesque bridge after going through a very old archway. On either side are gardens. Then you enter the castle courtyard where the main larger building is to the left, and a smaller building is to the right. The archway leading directly through the building on the right brought us out into a smaller courtyard and gave spectacular views of the ocean and cliffs looking to the north. We then headed back along the front of the larger main castle.

This lea down to the various walks that you can take through various gardens. Nothing was in full bloom of course, it being winter, but you could still how beautiful they would be. Then it was up to the cliff walk. We took the path that switch-backed down the cliff to the beach and explored down there for a bit. The beach was very interesting - course-grained, multi-colored sand, purplish-pink rocks, yellowish covered rocks, and all manner of huge rock formations. There was also a view out to the ocean's left of Ailsa Craig, a large, round mound of rock sticking out of the ocean. A few of these unusual formations can be found around the coasts of Scotland. By this time, it was closing in on dusk, so we headed back up and wound our way through part of the park and back to our car.

As opposed to the strong and impressive fortress profile of Edinburgh Castle, Culzean was a more whimsical and romantic type of profile, with many turrets and decorative medieval columns. The surroundings were stunningly beautiful, both in splendid ocean views and well-planted and tended gardens.

Thus ended our tour of Scotland and its ancient castles. The next morning we headed out to brilliant and blinding sunshine and below-freezing temperatures. We saw incredible countryside views (missed coming in because it was night) sparkling with ice and glistening in the sunshine.

We left Scotland without incident, except for Mrs. Kruppa beginning to feel worse and worse (sick). Upon reaching the same area of M6 near Manchester though, we were literally stopped for a few hours in terrible traffic. Shortly before we got in this jam, we blasted by a truck catching fire - and just managed to make it safely through the view-obscuring billows of smoke before traffic stopped there also. It was frustrating to sit in traffic, but we finally made it home at around 7 PM.

Scotland was very gray at this time of year - not a whole lot of daylight, but was still very beautiful and the castles were awesome. I have come to the conclusion that it would be even more incredible in the long summer hours of daylight. There is no spot on Scotland that is more than 65 km from the ocean. A trip to the Highlands might be well worth it in summer.