A Week in Scotland

Hello, and happy Friday! As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we won’t be posting every Friday anymore, but we’ll definitely be sharing on some Fridays. Today is one of those, lucky you! 🙂

Last week I shared a bit about our recent trip to Iceland, so today I wanted to continue the travel recap with our time in Scotland (and briefly England). I’ll also be following this up with a post in the coming weeks about logistical tips from our travel in both Iceland and Scotland, so stay tuned for that if you’re planning a trip and want to hear more about the how of our travel. Like with my Iceland post, I’ll indicate topics that I plan to cover in the travel tips post with a “(tt)” in the text so you know that further explanation is coming.

So, let’s go to Scotland! Like with my Iceland post, I’ll go day-by-day and start each day with a bad selfie we snapped on the day in question.

Day 0: The Missed Connection

When we last left off, we were at the Reykjavik airport boarding a plane for Edinburgh. Except the plane was actually going to Heathrow (London) where we were getting a connecting flight to Edinburgh. And you know how the airport in Reykjavik was all concerned with our happiness?

Well Heathrow isn’t like that. Heathrow is a nightmare of lines and terminals that are miles apart from one another and immigration and customs that cause you to run around the airport for two hours and eventually miss your connecting flight (tt). Fortunately we took it all in stride (probably because Sam and I were united in our hatred of Heathrow and so didn’t turn on one another), and we managed to get ourselves a hotel for the night near the airport, board a public bus, arrive at our hotel, and finally eat dinner at 11pm. What a day.

Day 1: Arrival and Doune castle

Had we not missed our flight, we had planned to stay at an airport hotel in Edinburgh and pick up our rental car at the Edinburgh airport the next morning, so really our plans weren’t too much changed by just catching an early morning flight to Edinburgh the next morning and getting our car. By 11am we were on the road, where our eventual destination was about 1.5 hours west in the Loch Lomond region. We had rented an Airbnb (tt) in the small town of Helensburgh, where we were looking forward to a few days of relaxation and hiking.

However, we weren’t checking into the Airbnb until 5pm that evening, as we wanted to use this first day as a chance to do some exploring on our way from Edinburgh to Helensburgh. Like in Iceland, we chose to rent a car for maximum flexibility (tt), but unlike in Iceland the driving was not that easy. There’s the whole “driving on the left” thing:

And the roads can be a little harrowing. I’ll talk about this more in my travel tips post, but suffice it to say that I anticipated this enough that I didn’t schedule us for any really long drives. Instead, I decided that we’d spend the afternoon in Doune, a small town about 40 minutes from Edinburgh and an hour from Helensburgh, and the home of Doune Castle.

We grabbed lunch at the Woodside Hotel, which was literally just the first place we saw to pull over and take a breather from driving and it also happened to have easy parking and food. Sold. After a lovely lunch, we took the short walk through town to Doune Castle.

I found Doune when researching Scottish castles and it seemed perfect for us because though we do not love museum-y type experiences, Doune is a relatively small castle, it’s more on the “ruin” side of things, and — major selling point — it’s a popular filming location that was used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Game of Thrones, and Outlander. Obviously we had to go.

The other nice thing about Doune is that they have a very entertaining audio tour (narrated by Monty Python’s Terry Jones and a few segments by Sam Heughan from Outlander).

You just wander around at your own pace and press the number on various plaques when you’re ready.

We had a great time wandering around listening to the tour, admiring the castle, and of course snapping copious (dimly lit) photos.

Once we finished at the Castle, we got back on the road to Helensburgh. I took photos, and Sam focused on not driving onto the wrong side of the road.

In Helensburgh we quickly found our Airbnb, a cute little apartment right next to the river and a few blocks from downtown.

Our last activity for the day was walking to the nearby store to stock up on groceries (since we had an Airbnb, we planned to cook meals at home most days). Of course I took plenty of photos of Helensburgh, which is a picturesque town even in the rain that had started coming down.

While at the grocery store, two very exciting things happened to us. First, I discovered pancakes being sold in plastic bags.

In case you don’t get my excitement, let me explain. The food I eat before every race/long training run (18+ miles) is pancakes. And because I don’t like to wake up an hour early to make fresh pancakes, I typically prepare said pancakes in advance and then store them in ziplock bags to eat the next day (or even freeze them to eat much later). Here’s some proof.

Needless to say, discovering these pancakes at the grocery seemed like definitive proof that I belong in Scotland.

The other second exciting thing that happened at the grocery store is that the cashier called my accent “cracking.” As in “cracking accent you have!” I choose to believe it was a compliment.

Day 2: Exploration via long run

On Day 2 in Helensburgh, I needed to do an 11-mile run for the half marathon I have coming up (this Sunday, in fact). Helensburgh sits along the water right where the River Clyde meets Gare Loch, and one thing I factored in when picking it as a destination is that I thought it would be a nice place to run. I was right, and I got some lovely views of the water, countryside, and the mountains beyond as I ran.

Sam went for his own 5-mile run, and I actually came across him as I was reaching the last few miles of my run. I of course coerced him into taking a terrible selfie (above) and a photo of me to help me remember this lovely run in perfect weather with beautiful scenery.

Sometimes long runs feel like a slog (especially for the last six months because I’m always in pain when I run), but sometimes you have a great run that makes it all worth it. This was one of those. I love running in new places because it’s a great way to see a place and it’s so much more interesting than running the same routes over and over which is how it is most of the time.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, reading, eating, and drinking some local beers, which was so nice after many busy days in a row. We also had an amazing Indian meal at Annaya’s Indian Grillhouse in downtown Helensburgh, which we couldn’t recommend more highly.

Day 3: Ben Lomond

I was excited about the Loch Lomond region because I thought it would let us do some hiking (or “walking” as it’s called in Scotland), and I picked Ben Lomond as our big hike for Day 3. It’s not particularly long (7 miles roundtrip) or tall (3,000 feet), but we found it to be a good challenge. Especially because as we departed, we both decided we were getting some sort of cold.

The first challenge, though, was just driving there. It was about 40 minutes from Helensburgh, and required driving on some very narrow roads. But we also got some great views of the mountains, sheep, more sheep, and more mountains. I promised Sam I was snapping plenty of photos so he could see them once he was done not killing us on the roads.

In the last 6 miles, the road narrowed to one lane, but was still two-way…so that was exciting. But finally we made it to the Ben Lomond parking lot at Rowardennan (the road just dead ends there), and were ready to start hiking!

There was some cool artwork at the trail head, including a carving of a drawing with a quote from John Muir which I really liked because John Muir is a hero of my dad’s.

But of course there wasn’t much time to delay, it was time to get hiking!

The summit is the peak to the right, buried in the clouds:

We were careful not to get so distracted by the scenery that we didn’t see the hazards in our path:

And soon we encountered the cows themselves in our path:

Sam approached with caution:

We steered (HAHAHAHAHA) clear, climbing off the path for awhile.

The route was steep and long, but we were rewarded with some amazing views of Loch Lomond the higher we went.

And finally we made it to the top!

It was cold and windy (so different than lower down — notice Sam’s wardrobe changes from t-shirt and shorts to windpants and jacket), so we snapped a few quick pictures before starting to sprint/hike down again.

We finally made it to the bottom alive, where we devoured our sandwiches in the car before braving the roads home to Helensburgh. All in all I highly recommend this hike, but it’s definitely not for the faint of heart and you should be sure to dress appropriately — even if the weather is mild at the base, it can get very cold and windy by the time you reach the summit!

Day 4: R&R

After a few strenuous days (long run, Ben Lomond) and both feeling under the weather, we took advantage of a rainy day in Helensburgh to lay low, walk around town, and even see the new Bridget Jones movie in the local theater (which Sam and I both really enjoyed, minus the ending). To celebrate this down day, we took a break from our bad selfie tradition. Slash, we forgot to take a selfie. But we did eat plenty of nutella.

Day 5: Back to Edinburgh and Dundas Castle

The purpose of our whole trip was for a wedding in Edinburgh, and so on Thursday we packed up in Helensburgh and hit the road back east.

Within an hour we were arriving at our destination, Dundas Castle, where the wedding would be held the next day and all the guests were staying for two days.

Um, yes, this will do just fine.

Don’t worry, I will do a “house crashing” post with plenty more photos of the castle, but here’s a quick taste:

The rest of the afternoon we spent catching up with the bride and groom, (the groom is a friend of mine from Harvard Business School), playing croquet:

And learning some Scottish dances to prepare for the reception the next day. The dancing was so fun and we were so good at it (only one of those statements is true).

Day 6: Llamas, birds, and the wedding

Friday afternoon was the wedding, and in the morning I went for a quick run and then we spent some time exploring the castle. Highlights included:

The llamas, who desperately wanted a photo with us (see above):

And the tower, where we could see amazing 360 degree views of Edinburgh and the countryside:

But of course the best part of the day was the wedding. The ceremony was held in the tower:

It was beautiful and personal and hilarious. We laughed, we cried, we made new lifelong friends. I can’t say enough wonderful things about it.

After the ceremony, we had the amazing opportunity to meet some birds.

The bride loves birds, it all makes perfect sense and was awesome.

Then was the reception, full of amazing food followed by dancing which was so incredibly fun. It was such a great evening, and even if the rest of the trip had been terrible (which it decidedly was not), the wedding would have been worth the travel.

Day 7: Travel and London for a few hours

On Saturday we had breakfast at the castle, said our goodbyes, and headed for the airport, where we took a flight back down to London. I’d picked out a hotel that was easily accessible by the London Underground, so after a 40-minute ride from Heathrow we arrived at our hotel mid-afternoon. We checked in, headed out for some food, and then spent some time wandering. We also bought cookies to bring home to Sam’s sister, who was back in Boston making sure our cats weren’t dead. She’s the best.

Unfortunately we arrived to late to actually go to the Science Museum, but we admired it from the street:

And then it was the end of the day, and before we knew it the next morning and we were headed home to Boston. We flew back through Reykjavik which went very smoothly, and landed in Boston about 7pm local time Sunday night. We taxied home, said hi to the cats, collapsed exhausted, and woke up raring to go, ready for a 6:45am Physical Therapy appointment and then back to work!

It’s hard to believe that this trip we were looking forward to for almost an entire year is over, but we had such a wonderful time. Where to next?