Scotland | Travel 2018

For the last 10 years of our marriage we have been talking about going to Scotland/Ireland but it seemed like every time we went to book it we always ended up going somewhere else in Europe with the mentality that Ireland could wait. We FINALLY were able to check these two off our bucket list with a 3 week trip through Scotland and Ireland back in September. It’s always difficult for us to travel during the fall wedding season but when we hold dates and solidify plans far in advance, we always do just fine adjusting. Being gone from home for 3 weeks is always a challenge for us (because we miss our dog like crazy) but this is our second experience with being gone that long and I think we’re getting better at it 😉

Scotland is an absolutely beautiful place and before I dig into the specifics I will say right away, for anyone planning a trip here and looking for advice- we did do a tour of Ireland and Scotland that was pre-booked. We did this for several reasons and there were some pros and cons to doing so. If you want candid feedback from me regarding the experience, let me know, I’m happy to provide it. Overall, the tour was 100 percent the best value for the money in the regard that we likely paid only half of what we would have paid if we had done the trip on our own: renting a car and booking similar rated hotels. The hotels and food on the tour were absolutely fabulous, we couldn’t have asked for a better experience. The tour also covered extensive highlights and entry fees for many of the popular sites so having that ease was a bonus. Overall, we are kind of against tours because we think they limit your experiences (and they do) but we were fairly happy with this one.

We landed in Edinburgh with a couple days on our own to explore, we fought jet lag post red eye flight and immediately went downtown to explore. We stayed at a BEAUTIFUL golf club just outside of the city with excellent food and accommodations and fortunately for us there was a quick and easy bus available to get downtown. We found amazing pub food, a local brewery, beautiful churches, and a towering castle on our hill in our first few hours downtown so that really set the scene for the rest of the beautiful country. With golf courses everywhere, it had us vowing to come back and do a golf tour (where we play a different course each day). We’ll hopefully plot that for the coming years. There is absolutely NO way I can do justice to All of the places we visited in Scotland but a few of the highlights were:

Greyfriars Bobby- the adorable little terrier statue/pub/church that exists in the town of Edinburgh. Being dog parents of a Westie we had to pay tribute.

Edinburgh Castle- an amazing high atop the hill castle looking over the entire city surrounded by beautiful elevated buildings and architecture with amazing views of the city

Holyrood Palace- the official Scottish residence of Queen Elizabeth (she unfortunately was at Balmoral while we were in Scotland so close by just not in Edinburgh)

The Royal Yacht Britannia- super cool history and great tour of the royal yacht

The above were tours and places we got to visit in Edinburgh in addition to the breweries, chocolate cafe’s and pubs we found while we were there. We then headed to North of Scotland where we visited several castles along the way including Eliean Donan and Blair Castle. We also got a great tour of Blair Atholl Distillery (where anytime is a good time to drink scotch) and had lunch at some amazing places. I think overall, we never had a bad meal in Scotland, even our room service (the weak night post jet lag we had) was outstanding. There were several beautiful abandoned churches, abbey’s and castles we got to see as we made our way through the beautiful country and we even got to stay in several castle style hotels (or castles converted to hotels in an effort of preservation) which were stunning. Our guide was able to provide some entertaining and relevant history as we went through the countryside and thankfully our tour group was small so we had a lot of great conversations and an easy travel experience. We spent a little over a week in Scotland visiting many things and we absolutely loved the country side, the people, and the scotch. We would go back in a heartbeat, specifically to play golf and venture around more in the scotch side of the country (where they make the good stuff). We boarded a ferry and headed into Northern Ireland where our trip would continue. Check out our Ireland blog for more sheep, landscapes, and more!

-The Keys