Green and rugged. That’s Scotland in a nutshell. Grasses are uniformly thick and green making cows, sheep and golfers very happy. We spent four days on a road trip through the Highlands making a loop from Edinburgh (Ed-in-burrow) up through Glen Coe and Fort William to the Isles of Skye and Raasay and around the Loch Ness to Inverness, Dalwhinnie and back to Edinburgh.

I tend to do much of the driving and this was a challenge. I learned to drive from the right seat on the left side of the road back in NZ so that part was no trouble. But doing it on single lane roads with passing pockets (little turn outs that allow cars to pass) adds a little excitement (and not a little stress) to the driving. But seeing the open Glen Coe, a rugged terrain on a massive scale, and the small town of Eigg, with its view of the mountains makes it all worthwhile.

For our Scotch road trip (we tried a different whisky most nights) we tuned in to the “Radio One Big Weekend” music festival from Glascow to hear popular artists like Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Lordes and One Direction and some new ones (at least for me) like Jake Something-or-Other, Bastille and Lauren’s fave, the 1975s. We had decent weather and managed to get in one walk to Inchtree Falls – a small hike of only 5 km or so. Someday I’d like to come back to do one of Scotland’s Great Walks. I don’t think I can do the full 95 miles but a small stretch of 20-30 through Glen Coe would be amazing. Any takers? Maybe the photos of Scotland will inspire you….

Once back in Edinburgh we met up with my mom and Doug for three days of eating, drinking and parliament and castle-viewing. Our standout meal in Edinburgh was at Timberyard. There are several Michelin-starred places in town but this one wins hands down for great food at reasonable prices with a smart-casual atmosphere and super friendly service.

We expanded our knowledge along with our waistlines. Scotland is home to several famous thinkers and inventors like David Hume and Adam Smith, Alexander Graham Bell and David Watt. There is also an impressive array of writers from Scotland. JK Rowling is a more recent transplant and we saw her writing nook at the Elephant Cafe and the gravestones in the Greyfriars cemetery that inspired the names of characters like McGonagall and Tom Riddle. The adults went on a literary tour/pub crawl where two actors led us through a discussion about Sam Johnson (compiled the first English dictionary) biographer Boswell, poets Robert (Robbie) Burns, Robert Ferguson, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and modern author Ian Rankin. Turns out they were all drunks. Just kidding. They were high brow intellectuals inspired by the drunks and whores in the Grassmarket area but I can’t be sure if that’s what they said either. Understanding a Scot is like trying to speak Danish. It rarely comes together right.