Epic European Adventure, Volume 6A

The Highlands! (Please hum the theme song from the show Highlander while reading this post.)

Hugh decided that he wanted us to take a day trip to see the Highlands in Scotland. We discussed renting a car and driving on our own, but after looking at the landscape (rough inclines) and thinking about driving a standard on the opposite side of the road; we decided to go on a tour. Hugh looked around on Tripdavisor and discovered a tour called “The Hairy Coo”. I’m not joking. It’s supposed to be a play on words in order to sound like “hairy cow”, not a porno tour. The way this tour works is that it’s actually free. They simply work on a tips only basis, and they had good reviews. Hugh reserved us seats for a tour and we were set.

Now before I begin telling about all the cool things from the Highlands you’ll have to take a step back in time to the night before we left for the tour. We had to meet at a specific location between 8:30 and 8:45 on Friday morning. The location was on the Royal Mile, and we were staying about 2 miles away, down a very large incline. The night before we decided to go down the street to a nice little pub called The Orchard. It had great drinks and an incredible atmosphere. We thought we’d get a light dinner and one drink before turning in early since we had the tour in the morning. Well…..we ran into the guy that owns the property where we were staying and he invites us to join him. He starts buying us beer and the time slips by. Hugh and Stephen then move on to some whisky, and even though we know we have to get up early we just decide to go with it. We were on vacation and having a good time. It was after midnight when we all three walk the 300 yards back to where we’re staying. As we’re falling into bed, I set the alarm on my watch for 7 a.m. local time.  

I wake up to Hugh telling me that we overslept like crazy and that I have 20 minutes to shower and get ready before we have to leave. I stumbled into the bathroom trying to force myself awake and take the world’s quickest shower. We leave with Hugh wearing the camera and I have the backpack with our rain gear and other stuff.

 This is the street view of the hill. We walked to the red "X" and then would take a quick left and walk up an even STEEPER hill to the Royal Mile. I NEED all of you to understand that this is more of a taxi situation.

We start up the hill. It’s lined with businesses on both sides, but it’s very steep. Hugh informs me that we have fifteen minutes to get up the hill and find the place that we’re supposed to meet the tour. I want to remind you that it’s in the upper 40’s and we are literally half-running up this hill. Let me share some dialogue:

Jenn: “Shouldn’t we take a taxi?”

Hugh: “No, we can make it. We just have to run a little bit.”

Jenn: “Um. I’m sweating and it’s cold out here. I didn’t know we were working out this morning or I would have brought my inhaler.”

Hugh: “I don’t want to spend seven pounds on a three minute taxi ride.”

Jenn: “@$#% @%$$*@@$%)%”

We make it up the hill with about 7 minutes to spare. At this point I’m thinking that The Hairy Coo better be worth all of this effort. I was confused and sleepy. I couldn’t figure out why my watch alarm hadn’t gone off, and I was pissed that I’d just taken a shower to simply sweat like a man before we even left town.

We locate the meeting place, but it’s closed. In fact, other than a few delivery men around, everything is closed. We start wandering around thinking that we must have the wrong address. We were approached by a woman that asked us if we were lost. Let me share our lovely conversation with her:

Nice Scottish Lady: “Are you guys lost? Can I help you find something?”

Hugh: “Yes! We’re looking for so-and-so pub on so-and-so street. Can you tell me if this is the right place?”

Nice Scottish Lady: “This is the right place. What time are you supposed to be there?”

Hugh: “The tour information says that we have to be there between 8:30 and 8:45. We’re starting to get worried since nobody seems to be there.”

Nice Scottish Lady: “Well, um…it’s only a quarter to six.”

Hugh: “WHAT?”

Jenn: (in background starts to laugh hysterically)

Nice Scottish Lady: “Yes, it’s actually only a quarter to six. You’re quite a bit early. This is the right place though.”

YUP!! That’s right. We were a bit early. Hugh had woken up to go to the bathroom and decided to check the time on our iPod, which was set to Houston time. He did the math in his head and decided that we had overslept. MY BANKER HUSBAND apparently had a small problem adding. Instead of waking me up at 7, he woke me up at 4. We had less than three hours of sleep and were standing in the middle of the street pouring sweat in the cold. Hugh started apologizing like crazy. I wasn’t mad at all; it was obviously an honest mistake. However, I was a bit pissed that we hadn’t taken a taxi. We ended up walking around and exploring and then sitting in a Starbucks to have a hot chocolate and warm up. While we were sitting there my watch alarm starting going off. 

I simply let it beep until it had finished, looked at Hugh and said, “It’s time to get up.”

Side note: We’ve told a few people this story and everyone asks the same question. “Why didn’t you realize that it was earlier since it was obviously dark outside?” Well- it’s not dark outside for more than about 4 hours in Edinburgh during the week of the Summer Solstice. It’s very similar to Alaska where they get periods of all light and darkness. In fact, if we’d traveled a few hours north we’d have been in Aberdeen which stays light all summer long.

I'll do the actual post on The Highlands tomorrow. I'm exhausted from reliving this situation. ;)

Epic European Adventure, Volume 5

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

If I had to choose one place from our trip to actually live, I would have chosen Edinburgh. It’s a beautiful capitol city, and yet it seems so quaint and friendly that you’d never know it. Hugh and I chose to visit Scotland for a few reasons. Hugh’s favorite drink is scotch (whisky is what you call it over there) and with a last name of McCrea, it’s obvious that this is the ancestral lands. Now, I have to say that Germany was the most beautiful place we visited but Scotland stands out because of the people. 

Hugh and I wanted to stay at Bed & Breakfast, and in my exhaustive search I located a place to stay that doesn’t advertise. They don’t have a website, and you won’t find them on trip advisor. All they have is a listing on Scotland’s version of HAR for vacationers. I had originally contacted a B&B about staying for our trip and the owner was going to be out of town. She referred me to a good friend of hers and promised that we’d LOVE the property. The price was right and the two pictures I saw looked great so we booked it. I was a little nervous that I was making a mistake but we were both shocked beyond belief. We stayed in a ground level apartment beneath an impressive residence. It was located on a crescent which is what you and I would call a cul-de-sac. Come to find out, the street we stayed on is considered to be the most expensive property in all of Edinburgh. It was gorgeous! We had our own entrance with a small kitchenette, a beautifully decorated bathroom that couldn’t have been cleaner if it’d tried, and the most comfortable room we’ve had the pleasure of staying in. There were fresh flowers on a small table in our room, two wingback chairs, and a gas fire that was simply lovely. Hugh and I would have happily lived there. 

Our host, Stephen, was exceptional. He pointed out a few places to eat and suggested a pub at the end of the road. Hugh and I chose to hang out there on our first night and we ran into Stephen while we were there. He invited us to join him and we had a very interesting night. He mentioned that he was retired from the hotelier business. He then mentioned something about trains. Come to find out, he was the owner of the number one luxury vacation train in the world. A few weeks before we’d left for our trip I recalled reading something on MSN about luxury train travel and I’d actually read about his train. It was incredible! Here we were staying in the house and having drinks with very famous hotel owner. He was so very interesting and so genuinely nice. He shared great stories from his experience in owning and operating the train and telling us about how he came up with the idea. Needless to say, this is one part of our trip that we’ll never forget. 

Stephen suggested that we visit a few places while we were in Edinburgh. One of them was Kay’s Bar. This is a tiny little pub run by a man named Fraser. He has a true handlebar mustache and he’s a former rugby player. Hugh and I escaped a rain storm one afternoon by ducking in to the bar. Fraser was very sweet and we enjoyed the locals immensely. This place is known as a “posh” bar by some people because the clientele are mainly college professors, lawyers, and judges. You’d never know it seeing as how warm, cozy, and non-pretentious it was. Stephen had told us to mention his name when we went and Fraser insisted that we sit at the actual bar and entertain him. We had great food and drinks, and he even removed three beer pull tabs from the wall that were from a beer called Houston and Texas and gave them to us as a souvenir. He asked us if we’d tried haggis, to which we both replied “NO!”. For those of you who don’t know; Haggis is sheep heart, liver, and lungs all mixed together with onions and spices and then cooked in a sheep stomach. It’s a national dish in Scotland and they take it very seriously. In fact, they even have a holiday devoted to it. Well, Fraser went back to the kitchen (he’s also the cook) and brought out a very gourmet looking plate of haggis for us to try. It was haggis on the bottom topped with ‘neeps (turnips) and then garnished with mashed potatoes. We both gave it a try (the two gin drinks I’d enjoyed seemed to help with the bravery) and honestly: It was quite good. I was prepared to hate it but I was pleasantly surprised. Overall, the visit to Kay’s Bar was quite unforgettable.

Hugh and I wandered around the city. It’s beautiful, and we took tons of photos. We went through the Whisky Experience which is essentially a distillery tour followed by a visit to the world’s largest collection of whiskies. It was a lot of fun and I know Hugh really enjoyed getting to see the collection; so much that he had six bottles of not-cheap scotch shipped back to our house. 

We took a tour out to the Highland’s and I’ll share that in the next post.

This is one of many churches in Edinburgh. They all have the dark stains from coal soot that can't be removed. The stone is sandstone of some sort and is too porous to be cleaned.

 I had to include this picture because Hugh did a great job of getting it backlit with the sun. So pretty!

 The whisky collection and tasting. 

 Some of the collection.

 More of the collection. The Johnny Walker company bought the collection from a private collector for the equivalent of $5 million U.S. Dollars.

 Edinburgh Castle.

 Part of the Royal Mile-it's a very long hill.

 

This is the street we stayed on. 

 

 Our entrance.

 Bedroom.

 The fire, window, and chairs. We would open the window and turn on the fire and just sit and relax.

 This is the cute little kitchen!

Love,

Epic European Adventure, Volume 4

Ahhh…..Germany!

I really loved this place. After all of the previously posted adventures Hugh and I spent two days relaxing and having a good time. We enjoyed the bike tour so much that we decided to rent bikes from the same business and take a little tour of Munich on our own. We knew we wanted to go to the BMW Museum and if we had time, we wanted to take a gander at the Olympic Park. While some people might have taken a train, taxi or rented a car; Hugh and I decided that we would bike it.

Great decision!

We ended up biking around 20 miles or more, but it was fun. We got to see areas of Munich that we wouldn’t have gotten to see otherwise. We saw the BMW Museum where Hugh proceeded to take tons of pictures of cars. We rode through the Olympic Park and even took a bathroom break at the hockey center (it was open….we had to pee, it was a win-win!). On our way back we stopped a nice biergarten that was connected to its own brewery. We had a nice beer in the beautiful weather and it started to rain. We biked back the rest of the way in the rain, but we were prepared with our rain gear!

We spent a good amount of time at the Oktoberfest grounds. They were located within 300 feet of our hotel and there’s a walking path all the way around it. People walk, jog, and bring their dogs to play. There’s no leash law in Germany so dogs are everywhere! The great thing is that they’re all very well behaved. We sat on a park bench where we read and relaxed for a few hours. It was very relaxing and we enjoyed it immensely.

One random bit of information: At one point during our ride (near Maximilian University) we stopped to check the map. We were right next to a bar called Strand that was actually a beach. They had beach chairs and a little shack snack bar and the entire ground was covered in sand! It was crazy looking so we had to take a picture.

We left Germany and headed to Scotland. Hugh and I thoroughly enjoyed this section of our trip and I’d love to go back. 

 This is the bike I sat on. I'd be lying if I tried to tell you what the name of it was.

 Here's Hugh on the one he liked.

 This pod thing drove around all over the BMW building. I never really could figure out what its purpose was other than confusing people.

 I'm sharing this because it's SUPER TINY.

 Cool old car.

 BMW Factory and Offices

 The Lowenbrau brewery garden. After we'd ridden a good 18 miles but before the rain!

 Hugh got to keep his stein. :)

 This was in a really upscale department store. I had to take a picture for my brother. It's a lego Darth Vader.

 Oktoberfest Grounds

 Walking path round the Oktoberfest Grounds. I loved all the trees.

 Hugh got a new fixed 50mm lens for the trip. This was some lens practice....

 This was my practice with the lens. Rule of thirds, anyone??

 We saw this from the bench we were sitting on. It's a dog that's as large as a horse and to the left you can see the small little toy pomeranian-esque dog. They were hilarious to watch. The big dog would chase the little one and the little one would bite the bigger one. Talk about David and Goliath.

 These are the pictures of the bar called Strand. They aren't a close as we'd have liked, but typically people aren't all that excited about having their photo taken while they're trying to have their lunchtime beer.

I know it's hard to see, but if you click on the picture you'll realize that these people are a bit dressy for a beach day. I think it's a great idea!

Up Next: SCOTLAND!!!

Epic European Adventure, Volume 3

Castle Neuschwanstein

As much as I thought about spelling Neuschwanstein differently every time it cropped up in this post I restrained myself. J

Castle Neuschwanstein is about an hour and forty five minutes outside of Munich. It’s less than a mile from the Austrian border in the middle of the Alps. Hugh and I elected to use Mike’s Bike Tours for the day trip instead of renting a car and attempting it ourselves. The full day trip included a coach bus ride to the town where the castle is located, a bike ride through the area with a stop at Swan Lake, and then a 45-minute hike up the backside of the castle that cuts over a waterfall gorge and a trip over Mary’s Bridge. The day concluded with the castle tour and a ride back home. Our guide was named Brad and he was from South Africa. He’d been doing this trip for twelve years and he gave great insight to the history of the castle.

The castle was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. He was a considered to be an eccentric and he bankrupted the country building his collection of castles. Castle Neuschwanstein was his crowning glory, and the interior was only partially finished before he died. The government owns the castle and they give a very simple “politically correct” version of how they acquired the castle and what happened to “Mad” King Ludwig. I’m going to spare you the boring government version and tell you what you can find out on the History Channel. Apparently Ludwig was a homosexual that had no concept of money and how it worked. He and his brother were not exactly brought up in a loving household. In fact, they were banished to their own section of their family castle and were not seen for years at a time. Apparently he managed to put the Bavarian government into such great debt that they had him declared insane by a psychiatrist that had never met him. He was arrested in his own home and he died “mysteriously” 3 days later in 3 feet of water, along with his psychiatrist. There’s a large amount of conspiracy theory surrounding the King and his death, but let’s be honest: He wouldn’t have been the first king to be killed by his own government. The government opened the castle up for tours exactly 6 weeks after his death. Since 1886, they’ve been making serious money from giving guided 25 minute tours year-round.

Now, enough of the history lesson. The day of our tour, the weather was a little rainy. We persevered and made great use of our rain jackets that we bought at the Eddie Bauer outlet two years ago. The bike ride was incredible. We drove down one lane that had trees on either side that had grown over to form a canopy over the top. I felt like we were actually on the set of The Sound of Music. I may have even hummed a little bit, Julie Andrews style. Swan Lake was beautiful, and some VERY brave (translate: stupid) people in our group even decided to jump in and swim for few moments. 

The hike was a ton of fun. We actually started our behind the castle and hiked up the back part of the mountain. There’s a river running down the backside of the mountain and the water was rushing by us as we walked. Several parts required us to walk on metal walkways that hugged the side of the mountain while the water was rushing below us. It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. After about 45 minutes we made it to the castle entrance. We then were given 30 minutes to relax before our castle tour or told that we could continue hiking up to walk on Mary’s Bridge. Mary was King Ludwig’s mother. She loved to hike, and she had a bridge built over the waterfall gorge so she could cross over more easily. We decided to make the extra effort and we were rewarded with some of the most memorable views of our entire vacation. The pictures can tell the story themselves.

The castle tour itself was neat. King Ludwig spared no expense in his castle building. There were mosaic tile floors and every fixture we saw was made of gold. His bed was made of wood, and it took 14 wood workers 4 years to complete it. His bedroom was the most ornate, gaudy room that I’ve ever seen. The German government doesn’t allow any photos to be taken inside the castle, but several have leaked online. Feel free to google away!

I’m including a few of our favorite photos from this trip. I’m uploading the rest to shutterfly, and if you’d like me to send you the link please just ask!

The castle, from one of the biking trails.

This is where I was feeling very "Sound of Music-y"

Swan Lake. See that ripple way out on the right side? That was one of the crazy people that decided to swim.

Hugh and I at Swan Lake.

Here we are in front of one of the waterfalls.

Rain biking. Gotta love it. The castle is WAY in the background.

Hugh, braving the rain for a picture.

Hiking up the waterfall gorge. This is where they divert some water to allow for a crossing. Don't worry, it goes right back after.

The walkway here is made of metal. You can see through it and it's actually a little steep. And wet.

Apparently it's very popular to stack rocks at the riverbed. Kinda cool.

That's Mary's Bridge. This picture was taken about halfway through the hike.

It's really worth clicking on these pictures to see the detail. This is the valley, with Hohenschangu Castle.

Castle Neuschwanstein

The small village in the valley. Just gorgeous!

One side note: There was this one woman on our trip that we gave the nickname “Kim Kardashian”. Everyone that signed up for this tour new that there would be a bike ride, and hike, and the possibility of rain. This girl actually shows up for this excursion in white skintight leggings, 5-inch stiletto riding boots, and attempts the bike ride. She held the group up quite a bit and THANK THE LORD that she finally decided to bow out of the hiking. I was worried that some members of the group were going to go all Lord of the Flies on her and start calling her Piggy and stoning her to death. Sometimes, I really wonder what goes through people’s heads.

One more side note: We did this trip on my birthday. Not a shabby way to turn 31!