So Much Fun in Scotland

Our whirlwind tour of central Scotland was a blast! We were blessed with some unusally fantastic Scottish weather, and only saw it sprinkle once during our whole trip. From Glasgow to Edinburgh, Stirling, the Trossachs and back, we explored it all!

After landing in Glasgow on Thursday evening, we promptly located a Pizza Hut (thank God for GPS!), and savoured (with the "u" since we were in the UK) the taste of the good American junk food we'd been missing for so long. Kelly re-familiarized himself with the "wrong" side of the road (and I re-familiarized myself with "holding the door on," as Kelly calls it) and we made the short drive east to Edinburgh and settled in for the night at our hotel.

The next morning we headed out to explore Edinburgh Castle. The castle sits right at the center of downtown and overlooks the whole city. We enjoyed some gorgeous views, learned lots, and had fun roaming around.

Afterwards we stopped at a local pub for some authentic Scottish cuisine (no Haggis though---we are not that brave!) and then checked out Camera Obscura. We strolled down Edinburgh's historic main street called the Royal Mile and toured John Knox's house, then walked further down the road to Holyrood Palace, the Queen's home when she's in Scotland.

After a little souvenir shopping and a yummy dinner of "bangers and mash" at a diner, we went splashing in the hotel pool (probably Zach's favorite part of the day).

On Saturday morning we took a drive through the country north of the city. On our way to Stirling we stopped by the Falkirk Wheel, this really amazing boat-lift-slash-sculpture thing. After having our minds blown by that for a while, we continued on to Stirling Castle where the boys had their fill of making my heart stop by running along the steep unfenced castle walls. From the castle we could spot our next stop, the Wallace Monument.

High high high, very high on a hill sits this gigantic memorial to William Wallace (a.k.a. main guy in Braveheart). We climbed and climbed and finally made it up the steep hill...sat in the sun for a while and enjoyed the view...then climbed and climbed some more up the stairs to the top of the tower---not easy to do with a little guy in tow. The view from up top was truly breathtaking :) though, so it was well worth it.

Not suprisingly, the whole family (and especially the one with the tiny legs) was wiped out after that adventure, so we headed back down the high high hill to our comfy car and rode back to Edinburgh for the Scottish version of Tex Mex (which was as not-good as we expected, but we still had to try), some more splashing around in the pool, and then a good night's rest.

The next morning was Easter, so we had a hunt for a few eggs around our hotel room and then went to morning worship service at St. Giles' Cathedral, the High Kirk of Edinburgh that has been around since the 1100s. Zach doesn't understand yet why he doesn't get any bread or juice, but he did great through the whole service and even earned some compliments from a couple of parishioners.

After lunch we left Edinburgh and took another drive through some beautiful green countryside to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park. We found a great little playground and lots of trails and paths on top of a small peak at Queen Elizabeth Forest Park.

After running free and getting dirty for a little while we continued our drive south to Ayr, a little harbor town on the west coast. We had a fun dinner and some awesome last-night-of-vacation desserts at Frankie and Bennys and then cozied up at our little bed and breakfast. Then it was up and at em at 5:30 a.m. to get to the airport for our flight back to Oslo.

We're resting up and looking forward to Granny's arrival on Wednesday, then it is off to Paris this weekend!