Now we’re sitting on our flight home waiting for take off. It was a great trip, and Scotland is a beautiful country filled with friendly people. But it will be nice to be home. Next stop, USA!
EDI ✈️ 🏴🇺🇸 ✈️ JFK ✈️ IND 🚘 🏡
We finished our day by meeting up with our friends Owen and Tam, and walking Princes Street before dinner.
After lunch we toured St. Giles cathedral. From the Norman conquest, to John Knox, to today—this church has seen a lot of history.
After Holyrood, we explored some of the “closes” (narrow public roads for pedestrians), and found a great Italian restaurant for lunch.
Yesterday we toured Holyrood palace, which annoyingly forbids photography of its interior. (I still snuck in a few when they weren’t looking!)
Catching up… Wednesday was a travel day, driving from Nairn to Edinburgh. Our only real stop was at Tomatin distillery between Inverness and Pitlochry. Even though the whisky wasn’t my favorite, they put on a really great tour.
I had the full Scottish breakfast this morning because the late departed Mrs. Flannigan would be disappointed in me if I hadn’t. On our first trip to Scotland many years ago, we stayed for two nights with our friend Owen at his Mum’s house, and Mrs. Flannigan seemed very concerned that we would starve in a foreign land. In addition to feeding us at every opportunity, her parting words to us were, “Remember to ask for the full Scottish breakfast. Mind me—the FULL Scottish breakfast.”
Final stop of the day was Cawdor Castle, which is still lived in by the dowager Lady Cawdor. It has beautiful gardens, including an honest to goodness labyrinth (complete with its own Minotaur statue). On the interior, it was interesting to see how the ancient has been blended with the modern to make the castle livable in the modern age. (Cawdor, Scotland, United Kingdom)
