Fàilte – Welcome…

…to my page about our trip to Scotland in 2001

Since years I was fascinated from Scottish history and Scottish landscape. I thought about visiting Scotland for several times, but this dream never became true, until Anke and I decided to travel to Scotland for vacation from July 29^th – August 11^th, 2001.

It was the first time that we’ve visited this beautiful country (and we hope that it won’t be the last time).

I would like to tell you something about our trip to Scotland. Perhaps you can find some useful tips for your visit to Scotland, although it was our first visit there.

First of all we had to decide whether to stay in hotels or to stay in private houses (b&b). We had an offer from a travel agency (FTI) to pass over to Scotland by ship (DFDS Seaways) and to stay in hotels from FTI.

There was one advantage for booking hotels over FTI:

the charge for the ferry was cheaper than if you would only book the ferry. By the way, we have used our own car for this trip, we didn’t hire a car in Scotland.

If we will go to Scotland again sometime we will surely use b&b! You can’t get in touch with the Scottish people if you spend every night in a hotel…

So we took the ferry from Ijmuiden/Amsterdam to Newcastle near the Scottish border.

Our ferry, the "Prince of Scandinavia"

I’ve never been in England or Scotland before, so I thought that there would be signs after leaving the ferry to remind you that you have to drive on the “wrong” (left) side of the street, but there were no signs. But after some kilometres driving on the “wrong” side was no problem anymore.

Our first day led us to Edinburgh, the capitol of Scotland. Edinburgh was one of the highlights of our trip. It’s a very interesting city. If you would like to visit Edinburgh Castle you should spent some hours there. Edinburg Castle is very interesting, also the military museum inside the castle.

City of Edinburgh                                               Edinburgh Castle

You should join a ghost tour while staying in Edinburgh. We had a very good guide who was great in telling ghost-stories and stories about Edinburgh’s history (greetings to Ailsa, our guide). I bought a book about Scottish ghost-stories. It seems that every castle or old house in Scotland has its own ghost…

Visiting Scotland is not a cheap holiday. So we thought about buying a “Scottish Explorer Ticket” from Historic Scotland to get cheaper entrance fees for certain places and castles (you can also use a ticket from the National Trust for Scotland, which also seems to be very good). The advantage in using such a ticket is that you will pay less while using this ticket than paying the usual entrance-fee without having an Explorer Ticket. The disadvantage is that your route has to pass the castles which belong to “Historic Scotland”, so it might be that you have to take a route which you normally wouldn’t take.

Our next hotel was in Pitlochry. From Pitlochry you have to make a trip to Loch Tummel (“Queens View”), Loch Rannoch and Aberfeldy near Loch Tay.

We had typical Scottish weather, and this trip was really nice.

Queen's view - guess where the queen is...

You also have to visit Blair castle with its garden near Pitlochry.

                     Blair Castle                The garden of Blair Castle

Funny traffic-sign in Pitlochry

After 2 days we were on our way to Inverness via Braemar, Balmoral Castle and Nairn. We’ve spent some time visiting Fort George, Dallas Dhu Whisky Distillery (but I would prefer a pint of Ale, sorry…) and Culloden Battlefield.

Way to Inverness - I like these roads...

We’ve also spent 2 days in Inverness before we went to the Isle of Skye, in my opinion absolutely the highlight of our tour. Of course we have passed the famous Loch Ness searching for Nessie, the Loch Ness monster (as every tourist does…).

There she is - Nessie

Although there are lots of tourists you should visit Urquhart Castle at the banks of Loch Ness. You won't be diappointed.

Urquhart Castle

Our hotel on the Isle of Skye was located in Broadford (next time I would prefer Portree). Our trip around Skye was great. We took the route via Portree, Old Man of Storr, Kilt Rock, Uig back to Broadford. Most parts of the route are single-track roads, but using these roads is absolutely not difficult, because everyone is driving very relaxed there (as far as I have seen it).
 

                Evening twilight at Broadford harbour                         Kilt Rock

I would suggest a tour on the (dead-end) road from Broadford to Elgol. This road and the scenic area are really fascinating!

I’m sorry that my English isn’t so good to describe the beautiful landscape of the Isle of Skye. A stay for 2 days is much too less to see all about Skye…

But if you would like to visit the Isle of Skye you have to be prepared for the toll of the Isle of Skye bridge, which is much too expensive! 

Isle of Skye bridge

If you are interested in the “Skye against toll”-initiative you have to visit the following pages: http://www.skat.org.uk/

    Remark, dated January 27th, 2005: I've read today that the toll for the
    Skye bridge has been finally removed on December 21st, 2004.
    Congratulations to SKAT and all it's supporters, well done, and
    greetings to one of the most scenic places in the world...

On our way to our next hotel in Oban we have visited Eilean Donan Castle.

Eilean Donan Castle

It is told that this castle should be one of the most photographed castles in Scotland, together with Urquhart Castle. Some scenes of the movie “High-lander” were produced at Eilean Donan Castle.

You shouldn’t take the direct way from the Isle of Skye via Fort William to Oban. I would suggest taking the roundabout way via Kinlochleven and the mystic Glencoe.

Our last hotel in Scotland was in Jedburgh, where we have visited the ruins of Jedburgh Abbey.

                        Jedburgh Abbey                 The "last shop in Scotland"

On our last day we went back to Newcastle, passing Stirling Castle and Hadrian’s Wall. From Newcastle we took the ferry back to Ijmuiden.