On our seventh day in Scotland, we got on the road right after breakfast, leaving our B&B in Glencoe around 9 in the morning. We drove back through the Rannoch Moor area that we had seen in the rain the day before, this time being able to see them a bit better.
The bit of mist there was provided us with a spectacular rainbow!
It wasn’t long after leaving the mountainous highlands that we entered Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park area. The area was certainly pretty, but seemed a bit lackluster after the more dramatic scenery we had seen prior.
We drove on down and back around Loch Lomond and were then on our way toward Stirling. The scenery here was much softer, with rolling green hills dotted with sheep, yellow fields, pretty farms, quaint villages. I actually like the area quite a bit, but the sun was also shining, which never hurts.
All of a sudden, Stirling Castle was before us, up on a hill.
Anthony decided to take a quick detour into the city, and got a glimpse of the William Wallace monument as well.
Afterward, we finished our journey to the Edinburgh airport, where we had a very long and confusing ordeal dropping our rental car off. We caught the airlink bus all the way to Waverly Station, where we had about a 15 minute walk, primarily uphill, with our luggage, to our amazing flat.
We walked in, and there was a dram of whisky waiting for us (gross, but thoughtful), and right outside our window was the Grassmarket. Our bed was up a couple steps directly opposite the windows looking out at the Grassmarket, providing perfect people-watching.
As we only had a day and a half in Edinburgh, we didn’t waste time before heading out to explore, which was rather easy to do as the city was at our doorstep. Edinburgh is a very walkable city, which I love.
We wandered down to the Royal Mile, and since it was so nice out, we stopped on a patio to have a pint and watch the buskers and people walking by. We listened to some street-side musicians and bagpipe players.
We wandered around, stopped in some shops, and eventually got some tapas-style Indian food for dinner. We ordered way too much, but everything was so good, we couldn’t really help it. I could probably eat Indian food for every meal.
Afterward, we decided to check out The Elephant House, a little café decorated with elephants everywhere. Oh, and JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books there. (!!!!!!!!!)
I walked into the bathroom, and Harry Potter graffiti and messages were EVERYWHERE.
And my two personal favorites:
We sat there with our drinks at the café in Edinburgh, Scotland, where JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, listening to everyone around us having philosophical Harry Potter discussions, and the Kansas City song came on the radio (“And I love you dear, but just how long Can I keep singing the same old song? I’m going back to Kansas City…”) It was such a bizarre clash of worlds for me.
Back at our flat, we watched out our window at the various rowdy Stag parties wandering by which was quite entertaining to say the least. The commotion outside went on way past when we went to bed, but then again, we are an old married couple.
Anyway, Edinburgh is a super cool city. I’m not typically a city person, but I could spend some time here.