During 10 days in Scotland, we had the opportunity to check out quite a lot of the food and drink scene - everywhere from big cities to small towns! In this blog, we’ll provide our perspective on what you can expect, provide tips for what to order as you eat and drink your way through Scotland, and offer a few of our favorite restaurants as recommendations.
Read MoreScotland is a diverse country - from bustling cities to popular rural outposts and small towns. In planning our 10-day road trip through the Highlands and Isle of Skye, we realized we couldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to the five different locations where we needed to book overnight accommodations. Because we have only been to this portion of the country, we cannot speak to accommodation options outside of this region.
Read MoreLocated in the charming Cairngorms National Park, tucked away in the Scottish Highlands is an absolutely fantastic bed and breakfast. We’ve stayed in countless B&Bs over the years and while many are memorable for different reasons, a much smaller number make it to our list of the top places we have stayed. Firhall Highland Bed and Breakfast is one of those special places. We kind of wish we could move in. Permanently. Is that an option?
Read MoreWanting to stay near town and avoid a lot of driving before our long flight and trek home the following day, we spoke with the B&B’s owners to get some recommendations on local hikes. We decided on Bracklinn Falls hike, which begins just a little over a mile outside of the town of Callander.
Read MoreThe ninth day of our road trip took us out of the Corpach/Fort William area, through Glencoe Valley, to the village of Luss on Loch Lomond in the Trossachs National Park and finally to the adorable town of Callander, the last stop of our trip and where we would stay for two nights.
Read MoreAlong the route, which is 42 miles out, the train passes over Glenfinnan Viaduct, makes a short stop at the Glenfinnan station, and then passes through Arisaig and culminates in Mallaig, the end of the line and a cute coastal town. Glenfinnan, in addition to being home to the picturesque viaduct, is also where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his standard in Scotland, the start to his march to retake his throne that would crash down a mere eight months later at Culloden Battlefield, which we had visited earlier on this trip.
Read MoreWe had seen many people recommending this site online, and it is clearly very popular with visitors. The owners of the land have set up a large, extensive mountainside gravel parking lot which is the only real place to park. I don’t recall the exact price - it wasn’t cheap but wasn’t astronomical either. Some people try parking alongside the road to avoid paying, which given the windy nature of the roads is not the safest (in my opinion), and honestly, if this private land is being used as Scottish law permits, I think the owners should have every right to profit off of it given the significant crowds.
Read MoreOur plan for the day involved taking a roughly two hour loop road around one of the peninsulas of the Isle of Skye and doing short hikes to places of interest. This loop road around the isle that can get fairly crowded at times, and there are concerns in the area of over-tourism. In our experience, there was not anything like the traffic we have heard about, but this was certainly a fairly popular area and more populated than other parts of our trip.
Read MoreToday involved a long car ride punctuated by several stops at some amazing places; the neolithic burial mounds at Clava Cairns, Culloden Battlefield for a slice of British and Jacobite history, and Loch Ness’s famous Urquhart Castle. Looking back I can’t believe we managed to pack all of this and a four hour car ride into one day!
Read MoreWe left Edinburgh first thing in the morning and drove about 45 minutes west of town to Linlithgow Palace, situated about a block up the street from the main downtown of the small town of Linlithgow. This palace is definitely one of the top highlights of our trip. After our stop there, we visited a fascinating living history museum as we entered Cairngorms National Park.
Read MoreSince we wanted to get an early start for our first and only full day in the city and to make it to Edinburgh Castle in time for our timed entry, we had picked up some breakfast supplies at Sainsbury’s the evening before. Still on a kick of croissants, a remnant from our trip to Paris a few months prior, we had picked some up along with yogurt, and ate in our apartment.
Read MoreWe arrived at Edinburgh Airport around 11:30am after an overnight flight from Washington-Dulles. After picking up a rental car from Hertz, we terrifyingly adjusted to driving on the left side as we left the airport for downtown Edinburgh, about 25 minutes away. The roads leaving the airport were strewn with signs reminding tired, weary travelers that they should drive on the left side, and I can only imagine how prone to accidents areas like that must be. Dustin ended up being the sole driver for the entire trip. As you can already tell – we survived!
Read MoreAs a couple who enjoy the outdoors, historic spots and places (Lindsey in particular really loves castles), and interesting geology, Scotland has long been on our list of places to visit. We also both have ancestors from the country, which always piques our interest in checking out a place.
Read MoreAfter one week in Paris, we had three favorite restaurants that stood out. Read more about these spots and what made them special.
Read MoreFrance has long produced a steady stream of talented writers, thinkers, and philosophers and has served as a beacon luring expats to its literary center.
From the romance of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers to Victor Hugo’s woeful, colorful characters of Les Miserables to France-at-war tales like Sabastien Japrisot’s A Very Long Engagement or Romain Gary’s The Kites to more stylistically unique works like Albert Camus’ existentialist novels and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s noveau roman novels in the 1960s, Paris has played a substantial role in the literary world.
Read MoreParis is a popular destination with a long list of spots on most travelers’ must-see lists from the Eiffel Tower to the Louvre. If you’re looking to go a little off the beaten path and see some great but less well known spots, which are also usually less crowded, these are some places that may be of interest to you. From a unique art museum to underground early Paris city ruins to the northernmost Roman ruins and more, find a spot in Paris of interest to you!
Read MoreCrypte archéologique is a fascinating underground museum that holds the ruins of the early city center of Paris. Found on site and displayed in the museum are coins that show the breadth of early trade routes. The museum shows the evolution of buildings and the city’s development over time. Visiting this site helped broaden our view of the city and its residents over the centuries.
Read MoreYou will find yourself dwarfed by over 1100 stained glass windows at Sainte-Chapelle. With windows depicting religious scenes and rising to epic heights in astonishing proportions, this 13th century chapel was built by King Louis IX to house religious relics and enhance his political stature. Of all the churches we have visited in our travels, this one definitely stands out among the most beautiful.
Read MoreWe had the good fortune to visit Notre-Dame de Paris about a week before the April 15, 2019 fire engulfed its roof. During our week-long trip in Paris, our apartment was basically right across the Seine from the cathedral and just a few minutes’ walk. We could hear the tolling of the bells that rang out at what appeared to be random intervals, and we walked by the cathedral multiple times a day.
Read MoreWe both took French in school - Dustin took it in high school, and I took it in middle school - and neither of us were particularly good or successful at it. I have always said foreign language was my weakest subject in school and so I hopped from French in middle school to Latin for the four years of high school to two years of Italian in college (my political science degree required foreign language or else I would never have voluntarily taken more language courses!). That’s right, I hopped from language to language hoping to find one that would click with me, but not a one! It was not all for naught, as I came away with a love of etymology and Roman history from my Latin classes and just enough comprehension to be able to halfheartedly translate the occasional foray into any Romance language in a novel. I also walked away with some basics of other languages that are foreign to English-only speakers like the idea of gendered nouns.
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