A little late Days 6 and 7

Hello! As I write this, I’m on the bus (coach) heading out of Scotland and into the lake district of England.

My intention was to blog about my travels every day of the trip but lack of sleep caught up to me.
We’ve had a few really late nights and a lot of early mornings. I’m looking forward to getting back to
London for the sheer fact that I’ll be able to sleep in. LOL

Ok, so Day 6 then.

We left Edinburgh and headed north and visited the beautiful city of St. Andrews.
The golfers out there will know St. Andrews. It’s known as the home of gold. Their Old Course is said to
be the oldest known golf course in the world. St. Andrews is also home to the ruins of a once great
Cathedral and Castle. The ruins are perched high on a cliff overlooking the North Sea. It was a bit of a
cool, windy day and the wind blowing off that North Sea had my hair going all over the place. It was a
hauntingly beautiful place. The town was quite charming as well.

Next we headed off to Pitlochry. It’s another quaint, pretty town. There are hundreds of those here.
Mom, Dad and I had a quick lunch at a cute little tea shop, we were off to the distillery.
We got to see how whiskey is made and then tasted the single malt made there.
I can firmly say that i am not a fan of whiskey. LOL. After our visit, we three went on our optional
excursion to Blair Castle. It was a beautiful estate and home to the only private army in the UK.
The castle was vast and lovely bit it was the grounds that were the most stunning. They have a field of
deer and some highland cattle. There was a lovely stream that ran through the property.

We made our way further north to Newtonmore where we spent the night. It was a very rustic hotel to
say the least. We had dinner there and that was quite good. One of the young waiters was in awe of my
dad’s beard and kept asking questions about it. After a rather rough night’s sleep, we were off again.

I think that brings us to Day 7. I don’t really know anymore. Days of the week no longer exist in my world.

Driving though the Highlands was quite beautiful. Green fields dotted with sheep, beautiful mountains,
a few with streams running down them and the occasional loch (lake). We made our way to Fort William
for a coffee break. While there we saw a steam train pass by. It runs the same line and goes over the
same aqueduct bridge as the Hogwarts Express does in Harry Potter. We also passed a valley where
the Quidditch World Cup was filmed for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was very cool.
We stopped along the way to see Ben Nevis. It’s the highest mountain in Scotland.
Ben is a Gaelic word for Mountain and Nevis means head in the cloud. It couldn’t hold a candle to the
Rockies, but it was quite pretty. The memorial to the Commandos was also there.

En route to Glasgow, we stopped at Loch Lomand, which is the largest inland, fresh water lake in
Scotland and of course, we took a boat tour. Sadly, they don't have a Nessie living in this loch but they
did have Canadian geese,which we had a good chuckle at. We got to see a cave where the famous
(or infamous depending on how you look at it) Rob Roy hid out from the British soldiers.

Next, we went into Glasgow. It’s the largest city in Scotland. There are several lovely statues in the main
square, almost all of which had pigeon/seagull poop on their heads. It was quite funny. There's also
one with a traffic cone on his head. Go figure.

We checked into our hotel, which was the most lovely one yet. It was an old manor house that’s been
converted into a hotel. I got a little spoiled as I somehow ended up with an upgraded room. It was huge
and had a king sized bed.

After freshening up, Mom, Dad and I headed off to our optional dinner out at Stirling Castle. While we
didn’t go into the castle, we met the Castle’s piper at the main gate. He gave us a brief history of the
castle and then proceeded to pipe us down the hill and into our restaurant. He returned a short while
later to pipe in the haggis and address the haggis. It was fantastic. After a delicious meal, the piper
came back to play some traditional highland tunes. LOL. He actually played The Maple Leaf Forever,
Camp town racetrack and AC/DCs Thunderstruck. He then told us a lovely story by Robby Burns.
It was actually one of his poems, that he summarized in plain English for us. It was about a very drunk
man being chased by a witch in a short skirt.

We got back to the hotel quite late (after 10pm) and I had a lovely sleep in my king sized bed.

I wrote this blog on the road this morning. We’re now at the hotel in Liverpool. I’m just waiting for my
luggage to get to my room so that I can freshen up before going out on a guided tour of the city.
My room is pretty awesome and I have a lovely view of the waterfront :)

I’ll tell you more about today’s voyage a little later on today.

Ta ta for now!

Sarah XOXO