My best friend and I are planning our trip to Scotland this week – so obviously we incorporated wine and a charcuterie board into our planning sess. Since this is my first attempt at blogging – a sentence I never thought I would say … or type – you don’t know my affinity for cheese and wine yet. But don’t worry, you will.
More to the point, I am going to Scotland next week, and I thought I would share the itinerary that my bff and I came up with. So here goes.
Monday:
11:30 am: arrive at Airport
11:30 am -12:57 pm: bask in the glorious feeling of having no work to do
12:57 pm: Flight to Connecting City
2:55 pm: Arrive at Connection
2:55-9:55 pm: Sleep in the airport and pray they did not lose our bags (which happened on our trip to Ireland …. both ways. But, despite not showering or changing clothes over a period of three days, we still managed to have a great time)
9:55 pm: Flight to Scotland
Tuesday: ARRIVE IN EDINBURGH
Today, we are going to grab some coffee and explore Edinburgh, including most of the following sites:
- Edinburgh Castle
- Gladstone’s Land
- St. Giles’ Cathedral
- Palace of Holyrood House
- Queen’s Gallery
- National Museum of Scotland
- Scottish National Gallery
- Scottish National Portrait Gallery
Wednesday: Hike to Arthur’s Seat and visit any of the sites mentioned above that we didn’t make it to on Tuesday
Thursday: We are taking the Jacobite-Steam Train (AKA the Hogwarts Express) Tour
- First stop is for coffee at Tyndrum
- Next stop is at Glencoe (WHERE PART OF HARRY POTTER WAS FILMED (when Hagrid is skipping stones) – and where an apparently less happy event occurred – i.e. the bonniest of Prince Charlies)
- Next we will arrive in Mallaig where we will have approximately one hour to enjoy a walk and take in the local atmosphere
- We will then board a train to Fort William, and afterwards back to Glasgow by coach
Friday:
- Explore Stirling, including Stirling Castle
- National Wallace Monument
- Doune Castle (20 minutes from the Wallace Monument)
- Inchmahome priory
Saturday: Isle of Skye
- Fairy pools
- Quiraing
- Black Cuillin Mountains
- Old Man of Storr
Sunday: Inverness
- Leakey’s Bookshop : located in a converted 1649 church
- Culloden Battlefield
- Clava Cairns
- Loch Ness
Monday: Urquhart Castle
Tuesday: Today we are doing a Whiskey Tour, which I am VERY excited to do. In 2016, my fiancé and I did the Bourbon Trail, which was a blast. And I am hoping that this turns out to be just as fun! Here is the itinerary our tour guide sent us:
7:00ish am: at this ungodly hour, we will be meeting the wise Duncan Cartwright for our Whiskey Tour!
7:30 am – 9:00 am: Find Duncan
9:00 am: Departure from Grantown On Spey
9:00 am – 9:35 am: drive to Glenlivet
9:35 am – 10:00 am: Browse the exhibition and shop before you join the first tour of the day at 1000.
10:00 am: Glenlivet Classic Tour (£10) i.e. “Where it all started”, the first legal distillery in Speyside. Good exhibition.
1:00 pm: – 13:00 pm Glenfiddich Explorers Tour (£10) They say Dufftown was built on seven distilleries and Glenfiddich is one of the most well know producing variety of innovative malts. It’s also a very photogenic distillery.
3:00 pm: Speyside Cooperage (£4) Watch the coopers at work. Some say the cask provides 70% of the flavour.
4:30 pm: Macallan Tour
Wednesday: Visit Balmoral!
Thursday: Back to Edinburgh we go for our final night and a different fun part of the city!
The Portrait of a [sometimes] Lady 