August 18th – 25th
For our final trip before school starts, we decided to head north to Scotland. The United Kingdom includes England, Scotland, Whales and Northern Ireland. They call them countries, but they operate more like different states in the US.
We took the train up, which took ~5 hours. Edinburgh which is southern Scotland is ~56 degrees N latitude which puts it level with southern Alaska, so it’s pretty cold up there. We did a few phases of this trip:
2 nights in Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and an awesome city. Aside from the incredible Harry Potter style architecture everywhere and huge castle looming over the city, most of the month of August is famous for the Fringe Festival. It’s hard to describe Fringe… Basically every bar, lecture hall, street corner and any other useable space gets turned into performance space and literally thousands of performers do shows – could be magic, music, dance, comedy or pretty much anything else. We searched for shows near us happening in the next 2 hours suitable for 12 year olds and up and got like 80 results one day. When not performing, the performers are out handing everyone on the streets flyers advertising their shows. This goes on all month. It felt a bit like college variety show type stuff and it was clear that there was a very wide range in quality, but it was really cool to get to experience it. We saw “The Scottish Magician” which the kids enjoyed and a Sherlock Holmes themed long form improv show which Jen and I enjoyed and the kids found confusing. We also saw lots of street performers. Really love the vibe of this city and would highly recommend a visit to anyone.
2 nights in Dunkeld
A good friend from way back in my New York days moved to Scotland back in ~2017. She was initially in Edinburgh, but moved further north into the 1200 person village of Dunkeld at the start of the Scottish Highlands. We went to visit and had an amazing time catching up with her and her family as well as enjoyed visiting the surrounding area.
2 nights on Isle of Skye
Then we headed west to the remote and gorgeous Isle of Skye. The natural beauty was breathtaking and photos don’t do it justice at all, but you’ll get a sense:
Final night in Inverness
Inverness is famous for being on the shores of Loch Ness where the Loch Ness monster hangs out. Once we learned it has an airport, we decided to fly back from there instead of driving all the way back to Edinburgh. The town was a lot more lively than we expected and we enjoyed our evening there.
Scotland was super fun! Cold, but beautiful and very friendly people. We’ll be back!