Land of Scots

My husband and I ( and Zoe) had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Scotland a few weeks ago.  We had decided that we wanted to take a trip somewhere before the end of the year, and we were thinking of places to go and I immediately said Scotland!!! The good thing about living in Sicily is that we are so close to many places that we want to travel to.  This whole year DH has been working so hard and really needed a vacation...so this trip was a great getaway for the both of us. It would be Zoe's first adventure in an airplane, and a good test to see how she will do on the long flight home this Christmas.
I don't even know where to start, there are so many things to be said about brave Scotland!! ( a term used by my best friend Sa). When we got to the airport, we were immediately directed to the front of the line. Which is awesome...the airport wasn't that busy anyways, but it was good to know that when it is busy, people with babies get to cut in front of everyone! I am ok with that. :) We sat down for a little snack and a glass of wine before we boarded the plane.

Vino

Panini

We had one layover in London, which isn't bad...but our layover was 8 hours long before we took off from there to Glasgow. Not only was our layover 8 hours, it was from 12am til 8am. Luckily Zoe was awake pretty much the whole time...(pff) so i walked around the empty airport a lot and we tried to get some shuteye towards the end.

walking Z around London Gatwick

Elevator, London Gatwick

Then we were off to our final destination...Scotland. When we arrived we picked up our rental car. It was quite odd at first sitting on the left side, and seeing DH on the right side of me with a steering wheel. It actually didn't take too long to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road, except for the occasional freak out when it looked like a car was coming head on towards us or when DH would veer too close to the left side...he was so used to driving the regular way that his peripheral vision wasn't adjused for that. But, he did an amazing job at driving and keeping our lil family safe!! Driving in Scotland is a world of a difference than driving in Sicily. Sicily is chaotic all the time. and stressful and scary. Totally the opposite here. People follow the speed limit, in the roundabouts everyone yields, the highways are very wide-open and easy to follow the road signs...there was no trash anywhere. It was almost too perfect. When we started to drive and I realized that I didn't have the address or directions to the guest house we were staying at, ( my brains are mush lately...Zoe must be absorbing all my braincells hehe) we had to think quick at what to do...so we saw a McDonalds and stopped in to gather our info and see what we could do. Luckily they had free wifi, so we pulled up google maps and got directions and saved it on the laptop. We were only 10 minutes away.  It seemed quite simple...but we were in the heart of Glasgow where it was slightly chaotic, and we underestimated  our ability to just navigate ourselves without our TomTom.  1 hour and 3 gas station stops asking for directions later...we finally made it to Scotscraig House. I told Susan ( owner of Scotscraig) that we would be arriving in the morning but we got there around 3pm. She said she was slightly worried but figured we had a delayed flight and would arrive sometime hopefully!! Right off the bat Susan made us feel very welcome. She is such a nice woman, very motherly and caring and talks a lot, gave us advice on some things we could do while we were there. She brought us milk and hot water for tea when we got to our room. The first thing we did when we got there....took a nap. All of us were so exhausted from the 8 hour layover we just wanted to lay our heads down on soft pillows and lay in bed..which is exactly what we did. Zoe fell asleep quite fast too so I was very happy about that!!

delicious scottish delights waiting for me in our room!

You don't even know how good this bed felt when we arrived...

Zoe the skeleton waking up from her nap

 When we got up we decided to make a run to the store to try and find a navigation system to buy and to get some toiletries.  When we got in the car Eric turned on my phone and realized that TomTom still worked in the UK...we sure felt dumb. And also relieved that we didn't have to go search for one!! We went to Morrisons, which is just like a generic grocery store...but it had been so long since I had been in one.  It was lovely.  I spent a long time just walking up and down the aisles saying ooh look! ooh..I want this!! Scottish bar soap!! Scottish tissue paper!! Scottish..everything!! YAY! haha. We just got essentials, like diapers and some baby soap and some little things. It was sprinkling that evening, so we just ate a quick dinner at a chinese restaurant and then went back to the house and hung out there for the rest of the evening.
The next day we woke up to the wonderful smell of breakfast...that has to be one of my favorite things.  We sat down to a wonderful traditional scottish breakfast which was eggs and bacon and sausage and haggis. O and black pudding! So good. Very hearty and filling.  A good start for the very long adventurous day ahead.

First highchair!

She's definately 1/4 korean...a common way to sit and eat is with one foot folded up. True story.

Breakfast condiments

Scottish traditional breakfast. Eggs, sausage, bacon, roasted tomato and mushroom from Susan's greenhouse, and a yummy slice of black pudding and haggis. Yummy

Beautiful breakfast setup in dining room. Look at that little elf!

Zoe loves her dada

 The goal for the day was to to drive up to Glencoe and Fort William. It was about a 3 hour drive. Probably the most beautiful drive I have ever been on. We drove by Lochs (lakes) and gorgeous valleys and mountains on either side of us with little waterfalls spewing out the sides of them.

Loch Lommond. Is that Nessie? hehe.

Lil baby waterfall

A lovely stream

The pictures don't do it justice...so majestic this land is.

DH capturing the beautiful scenery

And me..capturing a lovely crack.

About halfway through we stopped at a place called the Green Welly Shop, which was a cute little souvenir place and cafe type rest stop.

Stretching out the legs

Loves of my life

Look at that face...

 We continued on and about an hour later we reached Glencoe. It started to sprinkle right about this time, but not too much. We were still able to walk around and snap some pictures. Then we were headed to Fort William. On the way we found a small castle ruin, inverlochy castle, where we had a little fun taking pictures. When we reached Fort william we sat at a restaurant and ate some dinner. I got traditional fish and chips, which was amazing...o man. SO good! We walked around in the rain a little bit after and then headed home.

Glencoe

Fort William, Fish and chips.

Can't forget my Fryes...best boots ever.

Inverlochy castle. Mr. Poppins??

Inverlochy

Walking around the deserted castle in light drizzle rain. Enchanting..

Inverlochy. The grass used to be a moat

Night shot on the way home. Someone actually stopped to see if we were ok because the car was pulled over on the side. My initial response was..o no we are getting robbed. Thats what would happen in Sicily!

Beautiful leaves in Glencoe

DH, strolling in Glencoe

Family tripod shot in Glencoe in front of a loch.

 We didn't really have an itinerary planned, so we were kind of coming up with stuff to do every day we were here. Luckily my best friend Sarah had gone to Scotland for her honeymoon a few years ago and she gave me some tips and major places we should try and go.  So the next day we decided to head to St. Andrews and Stonehaven. St. Andrews is where the oldest university is, founded in the 1400s.

This was a common sight along the sides of the road, large farms with sheep or cattle or horses

A beautiful private road we sneaked upon to catch this beautiful sight

Grabbing an ice cold pint for lunch in St. Andrews at a University pub

Sitting with Z in the pub

DH making Z giggly

A roundabout at St. Andrews University

Stonehaven is a quaint beach town that has a beautiful castle to hike to on the cliffs. We got to stonehaven around 3pm.  The weather was tolerable, just a bit chilly and windy. When we got to the trail for the hike to Dunnotar castle, it was about a 2 mile hike on a narrow trail on the cliffs.  It was so so windy...luckily the direction of the wind was blowing us into the side of the mountain rather than towards the edge.  Still pretty scary, which is why I decided to strap Zoe to DH since he is more sure footed than me.  We werent able to make it all the way to the castle, because it was already starting to get dark and the wind was picking up. I was a little bummed out, but I didn't want us to get stuck walking back in the dark on that narrow trail with the cold winds...

Looking over the town of Stonehaven from the trail

Stonehaven

Trail to Dunnotar Castle

The narrow path to the castle with a farm and cows in the distance

If I was a cow I would want to graze here...

sheeps! I know. Plural for sheep is just sheep.

Baa baa, black sheep...

Majestic...I could just stand and stare and imagine my very own fairy tale. But the winds were pretty powerful and icy, so maybe next time..

Cool huh? That thing was pretty heavy

So close but so far...

Zoe was really bundled up in there...at one point we had to make sure she was alive because she had fallen asleep so soundly that she hadn't moved or made a sound for a while.

At the very end of the trail before we got to our car there was a man walking his dog. From a distance the dog looked like a werewolf it was so big and hairy.  DH asked, " is that an Irish Wolfhound?" And the man replied, "no...he's a Scottish Deerhound." Pretty close guess I would say...

The Deerhound that was call a Wolfhound..

On our last day we decided to go to the Stirling Castle, in Glasgow which is where we were staying. We saved the closest thing to do for us for the end because we knew we would probably be getting pretty pooped by then..and we were!! So we kind of relaxed a bit and didn't rush too much in the morning and set out to the Castle of Stirling....we were leaving the next day in the early afternoon so we knew this would be our last outing.  Although our visit to Scotland was a short one, it was long enough to leave a lasting impression on us.  Scotland is enchanting. ( I mean, when you enter a town a sign says "welcome to the kingdom of Fife". I want to live in a kingdom!) The land, the people, the food, everything about it makes you just wish you were Scottish...haha. We definitely will be making a return trip  here someday, so we can drink up all the richness in its vast splendor all over again. Hopefully by then we can stay at least a month...and Zoe will be older and maybe have a sibling or two. Thank you, Scotland...until next time.

Robert the Bruce. Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle wall from inside courtyard garden

Zoe was made to be in a castle..don't you think?

Cool tree inside courtyard

cannons on the terrace

William Wallace monument can be seen in the distance

Stirling Castle

I think I've found the handsome prince of the castle!

cool grass pattern down below

Our last day, finally a break in the clouds and some rays of sunshine. Scotscraig house, where we stayed.

Beautiful trees to the entrance of the house