What to do in Scotland?

Scotland, land of green grass, sheep and men in skirts. Or so we have thought before we visited. What are our favorite memories of Scotland? Well, weather didn’t make it on our list.

We also loved local Bed & Breakfasts, tea kettle in every room, monster Nessie and fattening Scottish breakfasts.

1. Drive on the James Bond road

All James Bond fans remember the seen in Skyfall where James drives his Aston Martin trough a scenery, that looks very Photoshoped. No, Glencoe is really that beautiful. And we drove on the left and survived. Hooray for Goblins. More James Bond locations can be found here.

2. Get married in Gretna Green

I don’t remember inviting the sheep to our wedding, but they came anyway.

This should be the first one. But, many people get married every day, not every one gets the James Bond views (Glencoe). It took a lot of emailing and running around for extra papers before and after, but the wedding was marvelous. How wouldn’t it be. You can plan most of it with a few clicks on the webpage. We booked the venue, dates went well with the plane schedules, and we were lucky with the weather. Seeing most of the costs in advance was very helpful.

Translating paperwork to and from English for Slovenian registry is another story, but we survived. All in all, mini wedding was planned in a few days.

3. Visit Fringe festival in Edinburgh

If you didn’t buy tickets in advance and book a place to sleep, in August you have a problem. Comedy festival Fringe in is so popular that everything sells out long time before the event. If you, like us, have your favorite comedian and want to see him live on stage, plan well ahead. Luckily, there were many free events going on all night, so Fringe on a budget was totally possible.

4. Castles, castles and more castles

Eilean Donan Castle on Loch Duich is popular place for taking selfies or making photo art.

Our honeymoon in Scotland also included some tourist traps like Nessie’s home lake, Loch Ness, but every road in Scotland seems to go pass a castle somewhere. We choose to visit max. 3. Castle Eilean Donan won our hearts. There is a reason it is the most photographed castle in all the Scotland.

5.Wet hiking in the Highlands

Our little woolly friends were everywhere in Highlands. They were better prepared for the wet weather than us.

Hiking in Scotland was a lot different from the one we do at home. Even during the high season, there were crazy amounts of rain. There were many tourists from different parts of UK and tall wore layers of water resistant clothing. All hostels were booked well in advance and there was suspiciously high amount of shops with rubber boots and waterproof jackets and over trousers. We decided on taking an extra short hike, took some pictures, meet a lot of sheep, got soaking wet and decided to get more exercise somewhere else. There were plans to visit Ben Nevis, but it was raining nonstop for the third day in the row in that area, so we skipped that part completely. I have been on the top of Ben Nevis when I was a little Goblin, but, sadly, not this time.

There is a saying in Scotland:”There is no such thing as bad weather. Only inappropriate clothing”.

How to get around in Scotland?

Scotland is huge. We flew to Edinburgh and booked a car there. Goblins mastered driving on the left fast, since we had to. For a more stress free holiday, there are also other options. Book a seat or a room on a night train. You can fly to London, check it out, sleep on the train and wake up in Edinburg. Caledonian sleeper also offers family tickets. We will surely try it on our next trip to Scotland.

 
Since goblins love to travel, but usually do it on a budget, we use Airbnb. By using this link to subscribe, you get discount on your first trip, and we get one on our next. If you are not into Airbnb, here is a 10% percent discount on your next booking. Travel as much as you can.
 

Save