After Shetland we still had a few places on the itinerary. We picked up a car in Aberdeen for some lefthand driving and headed back to the Highlands for a few more ditillery visits. We were honestly pretty burned out of tasting whiskey and only visited 3 more distilleries, one of which was just for a bathroom stop!
The lovely Ladies Toilet at Glenfiddich Distillery.Ben Riach Distilllery in Elgin was Mark’s favorite tour. Only four of us and the guide had great information about the whiskey industry.
Walker’s Shortbread Cookies were founded in Abelour. No tour of the factory, unfortunately, but we visited the company store.
The whiskey comes after you finish the run.
We couldn’t figure out why all (about 3) of the hotels in Ableour were full. Then we heard about the Dramathon – running with whisky at the end. We REALLY wanted a t-shirt from the event but that’s not part of the swag. If you want to run it, beware. This area is NOT flat!
Glasgow was the next stop for a few days. It’s a much “grittier” city than Edinburgh and parts reminded me of Brooklyn. The food was good, though, and we visited two art galleries along the way.
The BEST scallops at a tiny place in Glasgow. Thanks to Darcy for the recommendation.
A bicycle locker by the university in Glasgow. Does this tell you how much it rains??
This is the Glasgow version of sticky toffee pudding.
Back to Edinburgh, for the 4th time, before we took the train to Cambridge for a weekend with Mark’s cousin, Darcy, and husband, Kelly. They are always fun to spend time with. They like whiskey so we found a home for all the driver’s drams and half of the tasting glasses we’d accumulated.
Cambridge was packed because it was a graduation weekend. It took us 4 tries before we found a coffee shop with seats. We shared an elevator with a Thai student dressed for graduation in the morning. He’s graduating with a Ph.d in Engineering – Computer Science and AI. Has a position at Stanford already and just came back for graduation. We ran into him later in Cambridge and he showed us the huge framed diploma each graduate gets at graduation. How will he get that back to Palo Alto?
A visit with Kelly and Darcy in Cambridge with the required stop at a pub.
These are the little driver’s drams we collected along the way. Kelly and Darcy got all of them after we had a little tasting at their house.
This was in the WC at the Polar Museum in Cambridge.
Last stop was London for a few days before we flew back to Denver. We visited the Tate – Britain, went to see “Wicked”, did a little shopping for whiskey, met an Iowa friend for drinks, and had one of those amazing small world travel encounters. We were in a very crowded Kings Cross train/tube station on a Friday evening, looking for the exit we needed when we hear “I know you.” It was Richard from the Islay whiskey tour. He recognized us.
We saw “Wicked” in London at a Sunday matinee with all the kids. Susan had a broken seat! It was time to switch after intermission.
We met Sam, a U of Iowa friend, in London.
I had to eat mussels one more time before flying home.
As COVID-19 dominates the news, we are in Hawaii hanging out in Maui and Kona in the sun, avoiding any possible snow and not really too concerned about the virus. Once in a while I realize that I’m in the age group of “old” people (older than 60) who are being urged to stay home – not that I’m not going to do that!
Everyone seems to freak out about travel right now and it
made me start thinking about what some of the “worst” travel experiences we’ve
had since our first trip together 30 years ago. We’ve certainly had some
“adventures” but none of them have been too terrible.
Mark and I had the excitement of two Metro strikes in Paris. We camped (in a tent) in a Paris suburb and took the RER into Paris. The two strikes started in the middle of the day as Paris strikes are prone to do. We were in the city and needed to get back to the campground. The Parisians were VERY helpful and pointed us in the correct direction. We learned a few things along the way:
The Metro and RER share some lines in Paris and the Metro controls the RER signage within Paris. No Metro, no RER signage for which train is approaching.
Every train has a sign in the front window with a 3-letter code designating its final destination. The locals all know the codes and helped us get on the correct train.
We haven’t really had that many cancelled flights along the
way. A May hailstorm in Denver made us
miss our connection in DC to Frankfurt on our 25the wedding anniversary. Our
dinner was United Snack boxes! In case
you’ve ever wondered, the Sheraton by Dulles has a bar but it closes at 11 PM
so we didn’t even get a glass of wine on our anniversary! Who would ever think a bar in an East Coast
hotel would close at 11?
Susan had an extra night in Hong Kong compliments of United
after a fan blade shattered on the runway.
We had a REALLY long day in Australia trying to get from
Port Macquarie to Tasmania. What should have been a 4 hour trip ended up taking
14 hours! Hobart is another city with no
restaurants open after 10 PM. Dominos
Pizza was pretty tasty!
Tasmania was lovely after we finally arrived!
Oh, yeah! Don’t fly
from Berlin if there’s a chance of snow.
At Berlin Tegel the de-icers have to come to the plane. Our flight (1 inch of snow caused this) was
so late leaving Berlin for Munich that we arrived in Munich after EVERY flight
to the U.S. had departed. It took a bit
of negotiating to get on a flight to Frankfurt and a rush through the Frankfurt
airport to the gate with only enough time for a toilet break and grab a
sandwich. Ten hours after leaving our
hotel in Berlin, we were still in Germany!
The only good thing about this was that we got home at 1 AM so had no
jet lag the next day.
Then there was the direct flight from Denver to Maui that
wasn’t! We landed in Los Angeles for a
faulty radio and waited for a replacement plane, landing in Maui about 6 hours
late. Lesson learned – Beer sales stop
at 11 PM in Hawaii in grocery stores but there’s no line at the rental car office
in Maui at 10 AM and no traffic driving across the island.
We were in London one day and learned that Londoners who
ride the Tube aren’t really very good at figuring out the Bus. The Tube was shut down for a bomb scare and
no one appeared to know which bus to take!
Another nature-related travel adventure was in Maui. One Spring
Break in Maui began with a night on the floor of the Civic Center after the earthquake
in Japan triggered a tsunami warning for Hawaii. Listening to the Hawaii
Tsunami alerts all night long was educational to say the least. Be sure to take a pillow with you if you ever
have to evacuate your hotel room.
Then there was the bad traffic day in Chattanooga, TN on a road
trip around the U.S.. First, the interstate was backed up for miles with a
truck accident. After we picked a random exit, we drove through the middle of Chattanooga
using only a tiny square AAA city map (This was before cell phones.) and came
across a torrent of water in the street.
10 minutes later the radio reported a water main break exactly where we’d
driven and they shut that road!
In about a month, we’ve booked a cruise from Miami to Barcelona with some time in Barcelona and then in London. The corona virus news is everywhere but we’ve decided that we’re going on the cruise unless they cancel it. After all, we went to England for Thanksgiving in 2001 after 9/11. The English were quite happy to see some tourists. We flew home from Portugal on July 4, 2002 and the news was full of commentary about blowing up planes on 4th of July.
So, follow along and we’ll keep you posted on the cruise adventure during COVID-19 in 2020. We’re sort of wishing we were in Rome right now to see it without too many tourists.
