UK Page Ten

On our last two days in Scotland and the UK, we decided to do a lot of driving, which I didn't mind.  We left Borthwhick Castle and headed north towards Edinburgh.  From there, we went across the Firth of Forth and headed towards Aberdeen.  We couldn't really find a place in Aberdeen to stop, so we got some gas and kept on going.  We stopped in Banchory at a woolen mill and at the Safeway for lunch and drove along a road that followed the River Dee.  We stopped briefly and saw Crathes Castle and finally stopped for the night in Braemar.  We found a little bed and breakfast that had converted the closet in our room into a bathroom.  It was really cute.  The town looked like it closed down at about six p.m., but we found a little bakery that served meals.  It was a good meal and had some really yummy desserts.

On our last full day in the UK, we left Braemar and headed south.  We drove through some of the most beautiful mountains and valleys.  We saw a ski area and a lot of sheep.  We drove through Perth, Stirling and finally into Edinburgh.  We found a strip mall where I found a sports store and purchased my Rangers football jersey.  We drove around for a good while, but finally found a Guest House/Hotel to stay.  It was very nice and had a bar and restaurant in it as well.  Mom and I enjoyed our time there, except for Mom's early morning "fight" where she ended up possibly breaking her toe.  Being the trooper that she is, she didn't examine it until we got back to Ohio.

The day we left the UK was also summer solstice.  It was the longest day of the year, and it felt like it.  We flew from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, where we were to catch a flight to Detroit.  We knew that we had a three and a half hour lay over, but then after that our flight was delayed another three hours or so.  This was a bit of a challenge, especially when I saw that there was a big Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, but I couldn't go to it.  Then as we would walk around the airport it seemed like everyone was walking around with poster containers with the words "Van Gogh" on them.  I got over it eventually, and we wondered what we would do for food.  We had no local currency, but thankfully the airlines gave us vouchers to have some dinner.  We finally found a restaurant and enjoyed a new style of food.  We found the new gate and eventually got on our flight.  By the time we got to Detroit and drove home, it was about 2:45 a.m.  The funny thing that happened on our drive home was when my alarm went off.  I had set it for the morning before so we could get to the airport on time.  When it went off I started laughing because we had been up 24 hours and still weren't home.
This is a photo that we took as we stopped at a layby on our way to Aberdeen.


 
This is a shot of the River Dee.  We followed this river from Banchory to Braemar.


 

 Here are two shots I took after leaving Braemar.  The first one was right outside of Braemar.  The second shot is one I took soon after seeing a road sign warning of sheep in the road.  I've seen movies or commercials with sheep in the road, blocking traffice, but I never thought we would encounter them.  Well, we did.  They weren't in a huge group, but we did have to slow down considerably to get through there.


 
After driving through the small herd of sheep, I wanted to stop and take a picture of one of the sheep.  I really liked them for some reason and wanted to stop.  Well, as you can tell from this picture, I did not get out of the car and I was glad.  This sheep did not like that we had stopped.  At first he just looked at us, but then he started stomping his foot as me, like he was mad.  I decided it was time to leave him alone, after I took the picture, of course.


 
This is one of the many photos I took while in the Highlands of Scotland.



 

Here are a couple more shots of the Highlands.  You can see the heather growing on the hills.  These were taken when we stopped at some of the laybys along the way.


 
These were some less aggressive sheep that we saw in Glenshee.  That sheep kept rubbing his horns against the fence.  I guess he either had an itch or was trying to sharpen them.


 

These are a couple of shots of the Glenshee Ski Area.  It was the coldest place we were at on the whole trip.  I am guessing that with the windchill, it was in the 30s up there.


 
Here's yet another photo of the Highlands area.  If you look just to the right of the road, you can see the snow poles they use to see how high the snow is.  These roads had gates that they use to close them when the snow is too high.


 
Mom in the Amsterdam airport.  For some reason they had cows all over the airport and that looked like the most touristy thing we could have a photo op with.  As you can tell by Mom's smile, this was before we found out we had an extra three hour delay.


 
 

If you have made it this far, thanks for sticking with all these pages and sharing the memories with us.  If you have any questions, corrections, or comments feel free to email me at zeegirly@yahoo.com.

 

 
Page 1
  
 
Page 2
 Page 3
  
 
Page 4
 Page 5
  
 
 Page 6
 Page 7
  
 
 Page 8
 Page 9
  
 
 Page 10

Home

zee-mail