Edinburgh Day 3
For our last day in Scotland, we had a marvelous trip planned up north. We walked a mile to a car rental office, and Herr got his first experience driving on the left side of the street, and with a manual shift no less! He did remarkably well, but there were many times on the way north that he overcompensated and had us driving on the shoulder and nearly into some bushes! I almost had a heart attack.
The first thing we did was cross the Firth of Forth. Once on the other side, we pulled over so he could take photos of the rail bridge and road bridge. We saw beautiful Scottish countryside and lots of sheep before we came to the next bridge across the Firth of Tay. The Tay rail bridge is infamous for having collapsed a hundred years ago, so the reconstructed bridge is super fortified beyond what was really necessary. Herr took many photos. 🙂 The town of Dundee is just north of the Firth of Tay, where we stopped at the information center along the bay before going north to Glamis Castle. I really cannot explain how we got through Dundee, just that Herr seemed to know what he was doing. The directions weren’t any help!
Glamis Castle is about thirty minutes north of Dundee. It has one of the longest driveways I have seen, but what a view as you near the castle! It also has many highland cows roaming around its peaceful countryside lands. The Queen Mother lived there in her younger years. It kind of smelled like an old lady house too… but it was interesting to see. There were other castles I would have preferred to see, but they were much farther north. Another trip back to the Scottish highlands, woohoo!
After Glamis we rode yet farther north to Dunnottar Ruins. Now that was incredible! Luckily, I had decided to put pants on under my dress (it was chilly) because wow, the wind! Dunnottar is situated on the cliffs of the North Sea, and one can only imagine how magnificent it was when still intact. It really felt like a magical place, and very beautiful. When it closed up, I took a detour around to a nearby outcrop, where we ran into a rabbit colony dug right in the soft cliffside. Rabbit holes everywhere! It was a little scary walking the narrow path with such a steep cliff into cold vericious waters below, but wow, what a view. Dunnottar was definitely the highlight of the day!
On the way back, we took the old scenic road along the North Sea. We stopped in a small town for ice cream and took some photos of a lighthouse across the street from the restaurant. I wanted to see so much more, but really we’ll just have to go back. A few times. What a place! My brother and sister-in-law enjoyed the bus tour they took to the south of Edinburgh, but poor Rie had her allergies acting up. There is so much to see there!
