Scotland Photos

As I mentioned in a previous post, my daughter and I recently returned from a trip to Scotland. This post is a purely self-indulgent chance for me to insert as many photos from the trip as possible. Brace yourselves.

We flew into London, took the train to Glasgow, and then reversed the process to go home. I highly recommend that. The plane tickets to London were cheaper for us than flying into Glasgow, the train tickets were quite affordable and we were able to enjoy the scenery on the trip. Plus, we got a day in London on either end of the trip. We stayed in a Point A hotel right around the corner from the main pedestrian area in Glasgow. It was a perfect location. There were lots of restaurants around and we were less than a ten minute walk from two train stations.

Our first day trip was to Dean Castle. You can see it in the photo above. My daughter does love a good castle and this was a pleasant one. The grounds were very pretty and it was not crowded at all. There are so many castles to choose from and we wanted one of the quieter ones where we could just wander a bit. We were still very jetlagged at this point.

Another day we wandered up through Kelvingrove Park. We had been to the Kelvingrove museum five years ago so this time we were headed to the Hunterian Museum. It is in the University of Glasgow which is a gorgeous old building. The museum is a combination natural history museum and art gallery which basically was designed to cater specifically to my daughter’s interests. She absolutely loved it but, unfortunately, we only had a short time before they closed. We tried to go back another day but we didn’t check opening times (we will blame jetlag) and they were closed. I guess we will simply have to plan another Scotland trip.

We spent one day in Edinburgh which was not nearly enough. That is the same thing we said last time we went. Maybe one of these years we will learn. We spent a little bit of time wandering and shopping which was a lot of fun and then we decided to climb Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s Seat is an extinct volcano and the main peak in the group of hills in Holyrood Park. We loved it.

The next day we went to Dumbarton Castle. It was actually more of a fort than a castle but, either way, we enjoyed it. The views were gorgeous.

We still had a good portion of the day left after we were done at the castle so we headed back to Glasgow for afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms. We went there last time we were in Scotland and enjoyed it so it was lovely to return.

I am only hitting the high points here. There were lots and lots of other fun things and lovely wanderings throughout the week. We ate good food, bought some souvenirs, visited a couple of bookshops, and spent time in a few coffee shops. If I could, I would transport myself straight back there this minute. But it wasn’t quite over. We took the train back to London and we went to see…

Phantom of the Opera! This was a spur of the moment decision. When we were wandering around London on our first night we saw and ad on a bus and Celia mentioned in passing that it would be fun to go. I looked up tickets, found two affordable ones, and booked them straight away. This was Celia’s first trip to a theater production like this and she went into it knowing nothing other than the bare bones of the story. She absolutely loved it. The really cool thing is that when my husband and I were first married we went London on our first big vacation and saw Phantom in the exact same theater.

If you made it to the end of this post I am impressed. I just scrolled back through and there are so many photos I wish I could add but I guess that will do for now. I’m out of time since I now need to go plan a dream vacation. Maybe to the Highlands this time? It won’t happen anytime soon but you had better believe I will be prepared when the time is right.