Epilogue

We are now back home in Santa Barbara after a long travel day yesterday. We left Edinburgh around 9 am and ended up walking in our door at home at 12:30 AM California time (8:30 am Scotland time), so it was about a 24 hour travel day.

I wanted to share a map of Scotland that highlights some of the places we went. I have never embedded a Google Map into a blog before, so let's see if this works . . .



I'm not sure if my starred or favorite places will show up in the map you are seeing. If not, I can tell you what route we took. Basically, we went North out of Edinburgh to St. Andrews, then headed inland to Kenmore, then up to Inverness. From Inverness, we headed back down through the central part of the Highlands and then toward the West coast where Oban is located. From Oban we headed East toward Stirling Castle and finally back to Edinburgh.

Some General Thoughts About Scotland
I think the whole family really enjoyed this trip. There were a few high points and low points, of course, but that's travel! The Scots are very warm, friendly and customer-service-oriented. We never encountered anything less than great service at restaurants, museums, historic sites and hotels. We sent a meal or two back and there was NO argument whatsoever about taking that meal off the bill.

The food was reasonably good everywhere we went, with the possible exception of breakfast -- and this was mostly an issue for our kids. We are just spoiled when it comes to breakfast in our household. The Scots like a simple breakfast, but there were two things in particular that the kids didn't like. First, they don't seem to make scrambled eggs the same way we do -- they're watery . . . at best. Second, toast is often supplied already cooked (like hours ago) on your table. Third, they don't seem to have cream or half and half available for coffee -- only milk. Sausages were always good, however! Finally, there's the Haggis! It's definitely not appetizing looking, but it tastes fine -- kind of like the innards of sausage, but darker in color. After you read what's in it, you might not want to eat it!

Wine
It was often hard to find decent wine. Most places we went seemed to feature wines from South Africa, Chile, Spain, and maybe a few from Spain. It was tough for me to find reasonably good Chardonnays or Rhone Reds. But a few places definitely had better selections -- the nice restaurants in Edinburgh, for example. Somebody needs to tell these guys about California wine!