I've Bean Travelling

During our week in Scotland, we broke up our time in Edinburgh with a trip to the Highlands. Teddy is not old enough to participate in group tours yet and we didn’t feel brave enough to drive on the left side of the road, so we opted for a private tour with Discreet Scotland on their two-day experience to the Highlands of Scotland. Being a private tour, this was quite an expensive option but we had a great experience with our friendly and knowledgeable guide, Keith, and I would recommend the company to those looking for more of a customized, luxury tour experience.

Keith picked us up from our hotel in the morning. A note about using North American car seats in the UK or Europe – we had brought along our own Cosco Scenera car seat as usual, but couldn’t secure it properly even with a locking clip. We hadn’t had a problem with the same seat in Portugal so I’m not sure what happened this time. Fortunately, the tour company had a supply of EU approved child seats and we were able to switch out Teddy’s seat with one of theirs.

Once we finally got on the road, our first stop on the tour was Stirling Castle. This is one of the most historically and architecturally significant castles in Scotland, dating back as early as the 12th century. Sitting on the flat top of an ancient extinct volcano above the River Forth, it commanded excellent views in every direction, thereby serving strategic and defensive purpose. It was the preferred residence for Scottish monarchs, including the Stuart kings, and was the childhood home of Mary Queen of Scots.

Teddy fell asleep toward the end of our visit to the castle, but awoke in time for our arrival at Trossachs Woollen Mill. The visitors centre here is home to three highland cows: Hamish, Honey, and Holly, and we had fun meeting and feeding them some treats.

Next up was a visit to the picturesque Loch Lubnaig. The interesting, and scary, geological feature of this loch is its sudden drop in depth at spots right along the shore, going as deep as 146 feet.

After lunch, we went on a scenic drive onward toward Glencoe, a valley of glacial origins that cuts through volcanic rock in the highlands. This glen (valley) has tragic historic significance as the site of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, following the Jacobite uprising. In modern times, it is probably better known to tourists like us as the backdrop of Hagrid’s cottage in Harry Potter. The landscape was awe-inspiring but our visit was cut short by Scotland’s most vicious creatures – the hundreds of midges that started nibbling at us when we stepped out of the car.

We made our way to Fort William in the evening, where we stayed at Clan MacDuff hotel for the night. The hotel was too far out from the town centre to make it worth going out to explore so we just had dinner at the restaurant and relaxed.

The next morning, we moved on to another location made modernly famous by the Harry Potter movies – Glenfinnan Viaduct, aka the Hogwarts Express railway. The Jacobite steam train travels along a route from Fort William to Mallaig, passing the Glenfinnan Viaduct four times daily (two round trips). Keith timed our stop at the viaduct so we would see the train pass by. We could have hiked all the way up the trail to get the classic movie view, but we would’ve had to scramble up in 10 minutes, so we just found a quiet spot from a lower vantage point and that was good enough for us!

Of course, we captured the money shot of the steam train passing through. Train-obsessed Teddy would have loved to see this, but alas, he fell asleep while we were waiting.

To honour the historical significance of Glenfinnan, we also took a look at the Glenfinnan Monument and admired the view of Loch Schiel.

After lunch, our final tour destination was Queen’s View near Pitlochry in Highland Perthshire. This famous viewpoint overlooking Loch Tummel was named after Queen Isabella of Scotland, wife of Robert the Bruce.

This capped off our tour of the beautiful Highlands and we made our way back to Edinburgh in the early evening. We had one more day in Edinburgh before saying farewell to Scotland.