Edinburgh

My first Visit to Edinburgh was on a weekend trip with my girlfriend as a gift for my 30th birthday in 2017. I immediately fell in love with this city and always wanted to not only come back but also to explore more of the country that I had seen so many beautiful photos of in the past.

Like two years before we stayed at the Grassmarket. I liked the place itself with the bars and cafes nearby, but also because of its location in the Old Town with only a few minutes walking distance to the castle and the Royal Mile.

During these first two days in Edinburgh we walked a lot and explored all of the main sights, like the mentioned Royal Mile and the Castle, but also Princess Street, the Scott Monument and Calton Hill where you‘ll find the Dugald Stewart Monument, Nelson Monument and other sights. One of the best photo spots in Edinburgh in my view! We also had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, learned about and tried whisky at the Scotch Whisky Experience not far from the castle and had dinner at my favourite burger restaurant in Edinburgh: Byron (though I haven’t tried many others to be honest - but why would I when I found something so delicious).

Loch Lomond & Highland Games

Our next destination was Loch Lomond, but first we made a quick stop at Rosslyn Chapel which you might know from the movie The Da Vinci Code. I didn’t remember the film, to be honest, but the beautiful chapel is worth a visit anyway!

The next two nights we stayed in Balloch, only a few minutes in walking distance to the pier where you can get on a sightseeing boat to explore Loch Lomond. You can also walk to the Balloch Castle and Country Park. If you’re in the area and are looking for a place to get dinner, I can recommend Tullie Inn! We actually went twice because we liked it that much! Also, the weather in May was so good we could enjoy a beer on the outside terrace.

The next day was the beginning of the famous Highland Games in Scotland and we happened to stay not far from the place they took place, so we went on a day trip to Greenock to watch the Games. It was quite crowded and very exciting with all these people or groups from all of Scotland competing in different contests, like caber toss (wow! - only one was successful, though...see the photos), weight throw and most importantly the pipe band contest. Let me tell you: I can still hear the bagpipes.

Isle of Islay

The next day we drove to the Isle of Islay, with only a few stops on the way like the beautiful Inveraray Castle.

The Isle of Islay was the Place we were looking forward to the most as one reason to come to Scotland was it’s amazing whisky. That’s also why we booked three nights on the island. We decided to stay in Port Ellen so we could easily get to three of the distilleries: Ardbeg, Lagavulin and Laphroaig, which also happen to be among our favourites.

We had two full days, so we decided to visit the three distilleries nearby on the first day and the others on the island the next day.

From Port Ellen it’s actually only a 5km walk to Ardbeg, so we decided to take the morning bus there and Walk back to Port Ellen throughout the day. According to that schedule we booked the morning distillery tour at Ardbeg with an accompanied tasting. We stayed for lunch and then walked to the distillery of Lagavulin.

At Lagavulin we booked the Warehouse Experience. We would have liked to see the distillery as well, but the Warehouse Experience was the only one available fitting to our schedule. Was a good decision, though, as it was a quite different experience than the usual tasting and distillery tour. We learned something about the different barrels and were able to try some whiskys directly out of the barrels.

Our last stop was the distillery of Laphroaig. We weren’t able to do a tour anymore as it was already afternoon, but the shop and bar were still open, so we did our own tasting at the bar which was quite relaxing after a full day of hiking and drinking.

We hiked back to Port Ellen and had dinner at The Islay Hotel which was really great, especially to be able to eat outside on this beautiful day.

On our second day we started with a distillery tour at Bowmore Distillery and did a second one at the newest distillery on the island - Kilchoman - which was quite interesting as they do some things a little different.

From Islay to Fort William

Our next stop was Fort William, but again we made some stops on the way.

The first one was at Carnasserie Castle. Here you can go inside and explore the different rooms of the castle as well as walk to the top and enjoy some great views of the countryside.

We stopped for lunch at Arduaine Gardens. We didn’t see the gardens, but there were some highland cows and I was finally able to photograph them which I wanted to do since we started this trip!

Third stop on the way was Oban. I only realized on that day that we would drive through this town, so we had to stop at the distillery. We couldn’t join a tour, so we had a little tasting at the bar instead (they offer a tasting flight) - mine obviously for take away what I already got used to.

We arrived at Fort William a little too early to call it a day, but almost too late to actually do something in the area. We had a look at some hikes in the area anyway and decided to take the chance and drive to the Three Sisters of Glencoe to hike the Lost Valley hike. What I didn’t think of in the few minutes of planning was that the sun would already be too low when we arrived at the valley, so unfortunately there was no last catch of light for us, but it was still great to do some hiking and the hike itself was still nice. Maybe I‘ll come back some time to do the hike with better light. Nonetheless, pizza, cold beer and the Oban whiskey I brought were well deserved!

Loch Ness

The next day we first visited the 750 year old Inverlochy Castle before we drove to Loch Ness to pay the famous monster a visit. We only made a quick stop at the Commando Memorial with some views of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain.

The next stop was Fort Augustus where we got the first view of Loch Ness, before we drove further to visit Urqhart Castle which is located directly at the lake. It’s one of the largest castle in Scotland and definitely worth a visit. We explored the area for quite a while and then decided to not go to Inverness as initially planned but rather go back to Fort William to visit the Ben Nevis distillery. It was too late for a tour, but we could still hang out at the bar and they some of their products.

Waiting for Harry Potter

Before we would go back to Edinburgh we first took a short drive to Caol Beach and then drove to the probably most famous viaduct in the world: the Glenfinnan Viaduct, known from several Harry Potter movies, but also some other films, tv shows and even games.

The internet told me that there would be a steam locomotive at 10am, but Google Maps didn’t tell me that we couldn’t drive almost directly to the viewpoint. So after some misdirections we parked at the Glenfinnan Monument and hurried the 20min walk to the viaduct lookout which was already packed with people. The hurrying was unnecessary, though, I still waited at my spot for 20 more minutes until the train arrived. Kind of funny to see all these people leaving after the train had passed.

Afterwards I walked up the Glenfinnan Monument to enjoy the views not only of the viaduct but also and especially Loch Shiel, one of the biggest lakes in Scotland.

Heading back to Edinburgh

After visiting the viaduct we went back to Edinburgh. We drove through the beautiful scenery of the Glen Coe area and it’s beautiful mountains like the Three Sisters we visited two days earlier. That area is so impressive, I‘d love to do some more hiking here some time.

We also made a stop at Doune Castle which is also known from TV, especially from Outlander, which I didn’t watch, but also from the first season of Game of Thrones where it was used as Winterfell. We only had like half an hour to explore the castle, but that was enough time to see the different areas inside.

Our last stop was a distillery I didn’t know before: Deanston. Their buildings looked very interesting and the shop was still open, so we went inside and got another souvenir of this trip, if you know what I mean.

Back in Edinburgh / Day trip to Glasgow

We were back in Edinburgh, but we didn’t do any more exploring or sightseeing. Instead, on our last full day in Scotland we went on a day trip to Glasgow to see Celtic Glasgow win the Championship. We had some time to explore the city a bit before the game, though it wasn’t much. The game itself was good, and the atmosphere was amazing, which wasn’t surprising as Celtic not only won the game but also that years championship, so everyone was happy (except the fans of the other team, maybe). Took a while to get back to the train station, and then another hour to Edinburgh, but that was totally worth it. I didn’t bring my camera that day, but I took some photos with my phone.