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Ballater
Ballater is known as a gateway to the Cairngorms National Park even though we used Grantown-on-Spey as our gateway. It has strong ties to the monarchy as Balmoral Castle is only a few miles away. We are here to eat, drink, rest and hike. We would highly recommend a visit to Ballater and a stay…
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One Night in Grantown-On-Spey Entering the Cairngorms National Park
Jim planned this whole itinerary starting back in February and finishing up in August. The trip hinged on flying into Edinburgh and then getting to Islay for a booking there and then back to Edinburgh October 17-24 to meet up with daughter Jennifer and family. Everything in between was planned by Jim with help from…
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Dornoch
We are getting off of The Orkney Islands just in time as storm Amy is predicted to bring very high winds to Scotland over the next two days which will definitely disrupt the ferry services. We only spent one night in Dornoch but it gave us a very memorable hike. We have been blessed with…
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The Last of The Orkney Islands
The history of Scotland and Orkney is so extensive, goes back so far and is intertwined with so many other countries and cultures. It is very easy to become overwhelmed by all that there is to see, explore and learn about. Even though we have five days here we are just barely scratching the surface.…
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More of Orkney Islands
We continue with our first full day on Orkney as Sandy did so much research and loved getting into The Italian Chapel. We have now had two exhilarating days on Orkney which we would highly recommend to anyone for a visit.
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Orkney Islands
As we have said, we went to the Isle of Islay for the whisky, Skye for its rugged landscapes, picturesque fishing villages and Medieval castles. We are going to the Orkney Islands because Jim liked the name and it is getting near to the farthest north one can go in Scotland. As is our usual…
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Inverness
We were in Inverness for one night in 2016 and Jim remembers it as his least favorite city of the whole trip. We are returning here for a number of reasons. Inverness serves as the most convenient jumping off point for the highlands and northern Scotland. We need to go through Inverness on our way…
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Skye
We went to the Isle of Islay for the smokey, peaty scotch whisky and we are going to the Isle Of Skye for its rugged landscapes, picturesque fishing villages and Medieval castles. Skye is reachable by ferry and bridge. We are taking a ferry from Mallaig to the Sleat peninsula on Skye and then taking…
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Oban
We were in Oban for one night in 2016 with Dick and Andrew and enjoyed our time there. Now we are going to spend two more nights there as it is our exit city from Islay and jumping off point for Skye. The drive from Mallaig to Oban is about 2 ½ hours of beautiful…
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Islay
Since Jim planned this whole trip, Islay (pronounced eyelah or Ālah) was the anchor around which everything else was arranged. Back in his Scotch drinking days he fell in love with Lagavullin 16 which is a peat monster of a whisky. Islay is home to nine distilleries which all specialize in the peaty smokey whiskeys.…
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Glasgow
We did a day trip to Glasgow in 2016 with the aforementioned, from the last blog, crew of friends. The trip was spearheaded by Margaret who was very interested in the architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh as her career had been the CFO of a prestigious Boston Architectural Firm. On that day trip we did…
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Edinburgh
We spent two weeks in Scotland in June/July of 2016. The first five days were spent in Edinburgh with Peggy, Margaret, Tina, Dick and Andrew. The three women left us alone with the stalkers and returned home as they had been in London prior to joining us in Edinburgh. We spent another week driving to…
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Croatia, Last Ten Days
As mentioned in a prior blog, Sue Rhodes did extensive research for this trip and all of the accommodations have been spot on terrific. We cannot thank Sue enough for all that she did to bring this trip together so smoothly. Thank you Sue. And so ends our summer in Copenhagen and Croatia. What a…
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Neil & Audrey in Copenhagen
We know the O’connors from our prior life in medicine. Neil and Audrey have visited us in Paris, Mexico City Madrid, Kyoto, New Orleans, Amsterdam and now Copenhagen. Our time with them is notable for the most laughs, the most miles of daily walking and the most money spent on food and women’s clothing and…
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Copenhagen with Even More Family
Our eldest child Jennifer, husband Rob and son Jackson are coming from Newport RI to spend our last four days in Copenhagen with us and then they will accompany us to Croatia and spend three days in Kukci. Jen and Rob have spent time with us in Paris in 2017, London in 2019, New Orleans…