The Story Of Us

We said goodbye to the Isle of Skye  and made our way south to Glasgow.. our city of departure. We feel entering and departing from different cities is usually a time saver and makes more sense when you are city hopping. When booking a flight instead of a round trip we opt for a multi city. We also don't tend to have much airline loyalty.. we book the flight that makes the most sense in regard to time and money. Before we got to Glasgow we made a quick stop at the Eilean Donan Castle. Eilean Donan is a small tidal island where three sea lochs meet, Loch Duich, Loch Long and Loch Alsh, in the western Highlands of Scotland. A picturesque castle that frequently appears in photographs, film and television dominates the island, which lies about 1 kilometre from the village of Dornie. We didn't go inside but just stopping to walk around was worth it.. another breathtakingly stunning spot right out of a fairy tale.  It was a four hour drive to Glasgow and it rainy almost the ...

Our Loch Ness tour ended around 5pm and by 7pm we were parked at Hector's Boothy for dinner. It was fine.. not much else was open and we needed to eat. A bit bland for our liking.. nothing horrible. And then we crossed over the Skye Bridge and entered the Isle of Skye. Isle of Skye has resisted against skyscrapers and chain hotels and even chain restaurants. While Isle of Skye does have it's share of local hotels, it mainly thrives on bed and breakfasts, camp sites and caravans. We opted to stay at a BnB in Upper Breakish. While it was a little far from most tourist spots it was a shorter drive when driving into the Isle at night and would be quicker to get back to the mainland the day of departure. We stayed at Bed and Breakfast Rodel. It was run by an elderly woman, Nan who the boys immediately took to. The boys loved the idea of staying in someone's house and H ran to the kitchen the moment we woke up to chit chat and sneak in some screen time while Nan prepared b...

Our September has been insane.. my brother had a baby.. their third.. and I ended up making two trips to Houston.. one solo and one with the family.. the boys have already missed two days of school and we have just now finally begun to get into our routine.. We did have a wonderful family filled time in Houston but ugh I hate flying.. as much as I love travelling I hate airports and planes and packing! Back to our United Kingdom trip.. From Edinburgh  we made our way to the Loch Ness.. I had told the boys all about Nessie and I had a little believer while my eldest was the cynic. We booked a two hour Freedom tour with the Jacobite which included a stop at the Urquhart Castle. We sat on the top open area for the first half of our journey along the Loch Ness. The boys were given complimentary drawstring bags and coloring books. After the first five minutes of staring out into the waters it got boring. The tour guide was talking but nothing captivating or interesting.. It ...

After the Railway Museum in York  we drove to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The four hour drive was thankfully uneventful. Now a little detail that we missed when planning our visit to Edinburgh was that it was smack dab in the middle of the Fringe Festival. Unknown to us but the Fringe Festival is the world's largest festivals. It spans over a month with thousands of events and performances and an attendance of over 30,000 people!! Our hotel was in the Grassmarket area, which is a busy busy area.. we had to drive around in circles multiple times because of road closures until M was able to find a spot to stop while D and I unloaded our luggage and walked to the hotel while M went further to park the car.  We stayed at the Grassmarket Hotel which was terrific. I'd highly recommend it. We started a little later than planned.. but oh well.  We walked up W Bow St where we found more Harry Potter stuff.. Along Victoria Street, right beh...