Editors note: Amy Goldman, a Lynott Tours Reservationist recently traveled through Scotland on a familiarization tour. Here is Amy's report:
I recently had the good fortune to visit Scotland. Upon my arrival in Edinburgh, I stayed at the lovely Apex City Hotel, right in the heart of the city, overlooking Edinburgh Castle (or should I say the castle was overlooking us?). Naturally it was chilly and drizzling. Because I didn’t arrive at the hotel until 9:45pm, there wasn’t any time to explore the city, unfortunately.
The next morning I began a 3-day, escorted tour throughout the countryside. Our first stop was Edinburgh Castle. Because this was the one day of the year (if I remember correctly) that the castle admission was free, our minibus was not allowed to park on the upper street where the entrance of the castle is. This meant a nice little hike up a rather large, stone staircase. A good way to burn off the haggis breakfast (more on that later!). The castle was lovely...as you’d expect any centuries-old castle to be. The crown jewels were held in a room behind glass, guarded by a rather stern-looking guard. Nice, but not as nice as the ones in London. I guess the English are more ostentatious!
Our next stop was the National Museum of Scotland, only fifteen minutes away. This museum was beautiful. The collections in the Museum of Scotland building tell you the story of Scotland - land, people and culture. The collections in the Royal Museum building (complete with glass ceiling) contains exhibits from all over the world. Some exhibits are millions of years old!
Our final stop of the day was a visit to the Royal Yacht Britannia. Launched in 1953, this was the yacht of Britain’s royal family. She made 968 official voyages, covering pretty much our entire planet. The famous video of Princess Diana throwing her arms open and greeting a young Prince William and Prince Harry takes place on one of Britannia’s decks. The ship is beautiful and left in a state to make you think the crew is onboard but just stepped out for a few moments. The best part is you can buy homemade fudge onboard that’s delicious (especially the whiskey fudge!).
Dinner tonight was at a lovely restaurant in Glasgow. More haggis!
Okay let’s discuss haggis, the national dish of Scotland. It’s made with sheep’s lungs, stomach, heart, liver, suet (raw beef or sheep fat), ground oatmeal, onions, stock and seasonings. Traditionally it was cooked inside a sheep’s stomach but now it’s just cooked in a pot. (Sounds so much more appetizing now, huh?) I initially imagined it to be a gooshy stew (and therefore imagined to be quite gross) but it’s actually dry and chopped very finely. If you’re in Scotland and you see it on a menu as "fried," GO FOR IT. It’s quite yummy when breaded and fried (and let’s face it, cardboard is yummy when fried) and served like little croquettes.
Every hotel I stayed in had it on their breakfast buffet (where I also HIGHLY recommend the amazing oatmeal, or porridge as they call it...think Quaker Oats and then get Quaker Oats out of your mind cuz it’s nothing like Quaker Oats) but not fried...just loose in a pot. When not fried and served more traditionally, it’s good. Not great. Definitely an acquired taste. If you like gamey meats, you’ll definitely like haggis. It’s tasty but has a fairly strong aftertaste. Definitely better than the blood pudding, aka black sausage. This is a sausage made by cooking blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. (The filler can be meat, oats, suet, bread, barley or sweet potato.) This is like haggis but much gamier. This one I’d only recommend for the real adventurous eaters.
Finally, I highly recommend the very popular British "beans on toast." This is nothing more than, well, baked beans on toast. But for some reason it’s delicious in Great Britain.
Okay enough with the food.
The next day we visited the Kelvingrove Museum and Arg Gallery. A really wonderful place to visit and I’m not a huge museum-goer.
After that was the People’s Palace Museum. This is a two-floor exhibit showing the ways the Scots lived throughout history, with an emphasis on Glaswegians. The second floor was particularly interesting, showing their lives throughout more modern times.
Lunch today was at Oran Mor (meaning "great melody of life," or "big song"), in Glasgow. This is actually a converted church complete with stained glass. There’s a large room for banquets (it was set up already for a late-afternoon wedding) and other rooms for more casual fare. The food was very good and the setting was wonderful.
Our last stop of Day Two was the Glengoyne Distillery. Naturally you can’t visit Scotland without visiting a distillery. After your free whiskey tasting and video-viewing, we were given a full tour, showing how the whiskey is made. Then we were taken into a room where we were allowed to blend our own whiskey from "The Sample Room." On a huge table there are about six or seven different whiskeys and we were told to blend them to create our own flavor. Personally I think my blend tastes better than Glengoyne’s, but I’m really not a lover of the whiskey...despite how much I drank that week! You get to name your whiskey and take home your nice-sized little bottle. A very fun little touch.
Onto Dunblane for the evening!
Monday morning we headed to Loch Katrine for a one-hour boat ride. It was very chilly outside but luckily there was an indoor area on the boat. We passed by some lovely scenery...no monsters, however.
Stop two was the Scottish Crannog Center in Aberfeldy. This is an award-winning five-star attraction. A crannog is a type of ancient loch-dwelling, found throughout Scotland and Ireland and dating back some 5,000 years. Visitors can walk back in time and experience the life of crannog-dwellers through a recreation of a crannog. Apparently there are THOUSANDS of artifacts on the loch bed that are continually being excavated. A truly wonderful and fascinating experience that I highly recommend. There are demonstrations, exhibits and guided tours available.
Lunch today was at a lovely restaurant called the Courtyard where the food was great and the portions enormous. Today’s new food of the day was pheasant. As with the haggis, a big gamey but quite yummy.
Today’s final stop was a safari. We were in rather large jeeps and taken up about 2,000 feet, complete with snow. We were hoping to see some deer and grouse, but the only deer we saw was when our driver thought he spotted one in the distance, so we stopped, broke out the telescope and looked waaaaay in the distance at a deer or two. Not too exciting. Of course we were taken to a cabin on the mountain where we were given some fabulous Scottish shortbread cookies and they plied us with more whiskey. That was a nice touch and luckily there was a space heater in the cabin for us to crowd around.
All in all it was a lovely little three-day adventure and I hope to go back and experience more of the country. As they say in Scotland, haste ye back!
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