TRAVEL SHEET
Destination:
SCOTLAND
Edimburgh and Glasgow
(and Tour of the Highlands)
SCOTLAND in August:
The magic and the enchantment!!
A Travel which is suitable for the whole family! Senior + Junior!!
The magic of the cities, the castles and their atmospheres.
The enchantment of the great parks, the lakes and the Highlands.
Reason for the destination’s choice
Scotland’s attraction, a wonderful land! The scottish atmospheres “Braveheart” style and “Harry Potter” style (I am a great fan of him, also of the movies but above all I am a passionate reader of the books, thus being a fan of the author J.K. Rowling !!).
Scotland has always fascinated us, so we were looking forward to visiting it!
Transports
– Flight to Glasgow
– Trains (surface metro) , touristic buses and public buses to move in town and visit.
– Bus Tour to the Highlands.
Accomodation chosen
As almost usual, a private house suits us more than any other kind of accomodation, we decided to stay in a private house in Glasgow: in an elegant residential area at 10 minutes’ trip by train from the city centre; a beautiful typical house having a nice garden on the back.
What we have Seen / Done / Visited
We are passionate about Art, particularly modern and contemporary art, we love the biggest 20th century painters and sculptors, but also about innovative art, Graffitis, Murals and Street Art. We also love Art Deco (Liberty) style both as Architecture and as Design and Furniture (but also for the same period’s Fashion).
I love castles (in the world), but only the well preserved ones, better if still furnished, rich of objects and details!!
We like a lot and we admire Street Artists!!
We like immersing ourselves in Nature, see stunning landscapes, the most characteristic colours of every place… in this case in Scotland the big parks and botanic gardens, the wild beauty of the Highlands.
I am sure that our photos speak for themselves … and surely describe the magic and the peculiarity of the places that we visited…
– Glasgow city centre on foot and city touristic bus tours
– Edimburgh city centre on foot and city touristic bus tours
Glasgow
- Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (Modern Art)
- Goma (Gallery of Modern Art)
- The Lighthouse
- Glasgow Botanic Gardens
- Shopping Centre “Princes Square”
Edimburgh
- Edimburgh Castle
- Palace of Holyroodhouse
- The Royal Mile (on foot)
- Royal Botanic Gardens
- The Port “Western Harbour” and surroundings
Tour to the Highlands
- Inveraray Castle
- Oban
- Glencoe
- Lake “Loch Lomond”
- Luss (town)
TOP EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES
"Potter Trail Tour"
In Edimburgh, walking tour with a a guide on the trail of the places of Harry Potter, passing by the shop of magical objects and souvenirs, up to the famous Pub “The Elephant House” where the writer J.K. Rowling wrote much of the first book.
I Castelli e i Laghi delle Highlands
Beautiful historic Castles, the Nature and the lakes, all rich of charm and mistery
"The Willow Tea Rooms" - Mackintosh at the Willow
In Glasgow, a Liberty Style Tea Room …
… with the original furniture of the period
What we have never missed
We always try not to miss anything important in life .. pretty much all the time .. When travelling, even more …
In all “beer” places … we certainly do not miss a good mug of local beer, on each occasion tasting various types. Scottish beer is famous for its intensity!! Very tasty!!
5 o’clock Tea Time with a slice of cake or other candies!! Our afternoon snack time (even at 4 o’clock) tasting various kinds of tea and delicious sweets! One of my favourite teas (in Italy, too) is the famous Earl Grey, while Mario loves black teas ..
During the days around for visits or museums, we never miss afternoon coffee or in this case always strictly afternoon tea is in order (Tea Time in a Tea Room)!
When we are visiting an important or particular museum, since we never spend less than half a day there … (often almost 1 full day ..), a stop for an afternoon snack at the Museum Cafeteria is a Must! Usually, these are nice cafes with excellent fresh products … not only in Scotland.
Fun facts
I speak english fluently! Yes but .. it’s not enough … ehm .. I didn’t speak and I don’t speak scottish ….In fact, on the first day at the train station (train = surface metro) near our home in Glasgow we had to get our transport card for the whole period of our stay: at the ticket office of the small station, I’m not ashamed to say that … unfortunately I understood (actually I guessed …) a word every now and then … So, I had to ask to repeat the sentence slowly several times … In Scotland they speak Scottish and it is almost another language!! In the evening at home I used to practise with the TV News in Scottish, to get an ear with the language.. luckily I gradually understood more and more … it is a language with a beautiful musicality, but difficult …
It has not only happened in Scotland … but something similar happened to us also elsewhere on several occasions:
for shopping at the supermarket we walked to a large supermarket about 10 minutes away from home – after having filled the shopping cart to the limit and arranged everything in 3 or 4 mega heavy bags … obviously there is nothing else to do than taking a taxi to go home … even if it is just a 5 minute ‘s trip ….
You can imagine how people looked at us outside the supermarket … very surprised to see us getting into the taxi with the shopping …. hi hi ..
However, note of merit because in the large parking outside the supermarket there were taxis …. while in Italy no … maybe outside the big shopping centres there are taxis in Italy as well .. but outside the supermarkets, even the biggest ones, usually in Italy we have no taxis at all.
During the day Tour to the Highlands on the bus there was a commentary about the places (in Scottish, needless to say … and therefore, both us and the oriental tourists or of other nationalities, we all had the same rather perplexed and ? Shaped air, exactly like mine); on the other hand, we all had a real “blow out” of Celtic and Scottish music of various kinds … beautiful by the way!! On the way back to Glasgow, the last stop was at a very typical Pub … perhaps even a little too “typical” for us ... Mummified animal heads everywhere, carpets of animal skins… and other similar “objects” …
For me it was hard to go to the toilet … I felt watched .. but I really had to .. hi .. hi … You can’t find the photos of this stop … we haven’t really taken any ….
I discovered that
Even having already carefully prepared the destinations and places to visit in advance, my first point of reference is always the Tourist Office! In this case in Scotland I really found the maximum efficiency and organization, in perfect British style, actually Scottish!!
Moreover, I have always been a sort of “hoarder” of brochures, maps, tourist magazines … I collect them and take everything home!!
Glasgow has very positively surprised us!!
The Scottish Tartan fabric (the one of the kilt skirt) and all its designs and colors traditionally and still belong to the different Scottish Clans and each pattern distinguishes each OF them! I learned a few of them … Really very interesting!
Souvenir
We are not particularly consumers .. we spend for travelling and for visiting … and also for tasting typical and good food and products.
We are collectors of magnets and peculiar postcards: at home on the walls we have metal panels full of magnets coming from our travels / on the rear of the postcards Mario makes drawings and they remain among our travel souvenirs.
In addition, when the trolley or the backpack are chock-full .. a few magnets and postacards can always fit, so you can always bring them home.
There, we could not do without buying the original Scottish tartan fabric hat and scarf (asking exactly to which Scottish Clan belonged the patterns and colours of our 2 scarves and my hat …).
I held back from buying Hermione’s wand … but I would have bought even a lot more …
