10/2025 Almost the end of the trip
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!
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.
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?
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.
