Author archive
9 September 2013
It was an easy one hour drive to Scotland’s capital and second largest city. We dropped our bags off at the Tune Hotel, expecting to have to pay for the brief storage and sure enough, it cost us GBP2 per piece. We returned the car to the airport and bused back into town for lunch […]
8 September 2013
Above: Glasgow “Cathedral” from the necropolis. We had most of the day to fill or kill today. We started with a drive into downtown Glasgow which was easy being a Sunday; parking was easy too. We popped into the Cathedral and the necropolis behind. Interestingly, the Cathedral isn’t technically one at all. It is an […]
7 September 2013
Above: Stirling Castle from a distance. The original plan was to have a short drive from Fort William into Glasgow and take in some of the sights of the big city. However, Kim had relatives that he wanted to look up in Kirkmichael, near Blairgowie even though he had trouble contacting them directly. We did […]
6 September 2013
We left the hostel on Skye and drove towards Fort William. It is only about 2 hour away but because of our plan for tomorrow, we took in some sights further afield at Oban before returning to Fort William for the night. We feel that we’ve had a good dose of the Scottish Highlands and […]
5 September 2013
The weather cleared and we had blue sky for most of the day with patches of rain. The down side is that Scotland’s infamous midgies were out in full force first thing in the morning, giving us a taste of their power to annoy. We drove Dunvegan Castle about an hour away. While the scenery […]
4 September 2013
After a nice cooked breakfast, we got ourselves ready leisurely and left the B&B around 1030. The weather was very wet and miserable. As we circumambulated the island to get back to Tarbert, the scenery changed from the weird moonscape rock/tussock/water near the B&B, to soft peaty earth further along and some beautiful white beaches […]
3 September 2013
Breakfast at the hotel starts at 0730 but we were let in for the Continental selection at 0715 so we could set off in time for the ferry for the Isles of Harris & Lewis. We had beautiful canned grapefruit and mandarins to go with muesli, plus ham and cheese to go on our toast. […]
2 September 2013
Above: Eilean Donan castle on our drive approaching Skye. Leaving Istanbul It is my birthday today and I’m flying to Edinburgh to meet Kim. The airport shuttle collected me at 0600; I had to check it was going to Ataturk Airport rather than Sabiha Gokcen just to be safe! I like Ataturk because is much closer, […]
1 September 2013
Today I wanted to explore the more European urban area of Istanbul. The main area of Taksim was somewhere I hadn’t seen much of previously. I took the tram to Kabatas and transferred to the underground funicular to Taksim Square. From there it was a pleasant walk downhill on Istiklal pedestrian mall down to sea […]
31 August 2013
Today I wanted to repeat some of the sights of Istanbul that I had done on my previous visits. First was the Blue Mosque, known by that knickname becase of the blue tiles in the interior. It involved some queueing and was free. While it is beautiful, my heart goes to the Ayasofya which I […]