Scotland: Day 12: Traveling Home and Scotland Recap

We woke up VERY early so that we could catch our flight home. It was possibly one of the most exhausting days of my life, but I was so glad to be heading home to my son, husband, and dog.

Our flight back to the United States went very smooth. However, our second flight was delayed multiple times and I ended up getting home a couple hours later than expected after our 2 hour bus drive. But that's not what's important. What's important was that we got home safe. And we all had a fantastic time. I will remember these moments forever.

Now that I've told you all about my trip, let's recap.
Scotland: Day 1: Travel Day
Scotland: Day 2: Edinburgh
Scotland: Day 3: Edinburgh
Scotland: Day 4: Edinburgh
Scotland: Day 5: St. Andrews
Scotland: Day 6: Aberdeen
Scotland: Day 7: Inverness
Scotland: Day 8: Inverness
Scotland: Day 9: Inverness
Scotland: Day 10: Loch Ness
Scotland: Day 11: Glasgow
I hope that if you ever get the chance, you will enjoy Scotland as much as I did. It was amazing and I absolutely loved every second of it.

Scotland: Day 11: Glasgow

I know that the title of this post says Glasgow and the reason for that is because we woke up in Glasgow and we fell asleep in Glasgow. However, disappointing for all of us, we didn't actually spend any of our time in Glasgow. I wish I had some things to tell you about this city, but I don't.

So we started our day by driving to Stirling where we stopped at the Church of the Holy Rude. It has the largest pipe organ in all of Scotland. It truly is a beautiful church. Anyway, we practiced and then set of to explore. Stirling is a great little town! It has so many cute shops and coffee shops and pubs. You could easily walk a great distance. After an hour or so of exploring, we had our concert. It went pretty well.

After the concert, we got something to eat and then explored some more. When our bus finally arrived, we were ready to go. And we drove to St. Mark's Parish Church of Scotland in Stirling. We had practice again and then changed into our formal concert attire. We had our last concert of the trip, which was definitely our best. And then we drove for a little back towards Glasgow to get a late dinner. It was pretty good. I'm not sure why they had us eating at so many Italian restaurants on our tour of Scotland, though. Oh well. We all had a great time. We ended up getting back to our hotel very late where we all had to pack everything up because our wake-up call was coming in just a few hours.

Scotland: Day 10: Loch Ness

On this day of our trip, we spent a lot of our day in the bus on the road. We drove from Inverness to Glasgow. And in case you don't know, that is about a 3 hour drive. However, we stopped a bunch of times to take pictures and stretch our legs.
We even stopped at the Loch Ness Visitors Center. It was very interesting. You travel from room to room to learn more about the legend and how it has been disproved. It was a little disappointing that it felt like they spent the entire time telling you about how the Loch Ness Monster isn't real. For those of us that just love the story of Nessie, we will forever live with the hope that she really does exist (I'm joking, mostly).
After our tour, we drove some more. We stopped a couple times to see the tallest mountain n Scotland (Ben Nevis) and a couple other good photo op areas.

When we finally reached Glasgow, it was kind of late. We went out to get some dinner and drinks. Perhaps it was because we'd had such fun in other cities, but Glasgow's nightlife just didn't meet our expectations. I'm disappointed that this was really our only time to judge the city. The next day we spent all of our time in a different town so we didn't get the chance to see all the cool things Glasgow had to offer us.

Scotland: Day 9: Inverness

Let me tell you about the most beautiful castle I saw while I was in Scotland! It was called Dunrobin Castle. We took a tour inside (where you're not allowed to take pictures). There were so many rooms and little passageways (that were clearly for the servants). It even had an old elevator! Wow, were they before their time or what? It was so spectacular. I wish I lived in a castle. Downstairs was a little cafe. I had some soup and it was pretty good. There aren't a whole lot of places to sit though so if you see someone getting up, take it!
Outside is where the real beauty hits you. These gardens are the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen! I don't think anything will ever top this experience. They're just beautiful!

And the views of the castle from the gardens are just stunning. There are so many different angles. I took so many pictures because every time I thought I had caught the perfect picture of the castle, I saw it from a different angle and fell in love with it all over again!

If you see a door to go outside of the gardens towards a beach, let me tell you, you're not supposed to do that. Apparently, it's trespassing. However, we didn't learn that until after we had already gone through the door and seen the beach. It was very cool. I mean, what's better than having a castle? Duh! Having a castle on the beach!

If you get the chance, watch the bird show. The man that does this has a true love and respect for these birds and it is so fun to watch. He is very knowledgeable and tells you fun facts about the birds and how he takes care of them. At the end, he asks for donations so that he can continue to take care of the birds. And we're not talking about little weak birds. We're talking about owls and hawks and falcons! So cool!

And just when we thought we were heading back to the bus, one of my friends noticed a little trail off to the side of the parking lot so we went on that and found a little stream. It was a cute little area. If you have extra time, I would definitely say to take the unbeaten path.

I think we spent about 4 hours here and I was not disappointed.

After the castle, we had a concert at Dornoch Cathedral. It was beautiful. The whole church is set up in t shape and we met the absolute nicest people! We had our practice, broke for dinner, and then sang our concert. I think it was one of our biggest crowds. We really felt the love since Dornoch is such a small town. Then we headed back to our hotel for the night. dunrobin castle concert

Scotland: Day 8: Inverness

We started off our day with a trip to Tomatin Distillery. It was amazing! I learned so much about how whisky is made, what makes it Scotch vs Whisky, and what peated whisky was and how it's made. We toured the area where they make the whisky. Plus, we got to see one of the barrel rooms where they store their whisky (where it becomes scotch). Then, at the end of our tour, we had a sample. It was awesome.

We drove over to Culloden Moor to see the visitor's center, walk the grounds, and have a bite to eat. Honestly, I found their 'dining' area to be overpriced with not too many selections. I didn't even like the food I got. But the center and grounds were beautiful and very informative.

Then we stopped at Clava Cairns on our way back to Inverness. It was interesting, but I guess to me, if you've seen one rock formation, you've seen them all. Our bus dropped us off in the middle of town where everyone just went off and did their own thing. We ate at McGonagall's Steakhouse. It was a little pricey (which I think put my friends in a slump because they didn't really seem to enjoy their meal). I found my food to be delicious though. I had lamb.

After dinner, we walked around and did a little shopping. Inverness is so pretty. I just love their downtown area.

We took the bus back to our hotel and then decided to take a dip in the pool. It was a nice relaxing way to the end the day. Then, we stopped by the bar for a quick drink before bed.

Scotland: Day 7: Inverness

Since we stayed out so late the night before, our choir director thought we wouldn't wake up in time to make it breakfast, but we showed him wrong.

Not only did we make it to breakfast on time, we made it to the church service that morning and sang beautifully. It was a really fun service. After the service, we went on a nice drive toward Inverness. On the way, we stopped at a beautiful castle that we explored. It was amazing. The inside was nice, but the outside gardens were absolutely gorgeous. Then, we crossed a bridge that took us on a wild adventure. I had the best time.

We checked into our hotel and had a drink at the hotel bar. Then we went to bed!

Scotland: Day 6: Aberdeen

I have just had the best time writing these posts about my time in Scotland. It has been a great time to reflect on my adventures during the crazy hectic time of summer. That being said, let's get back to it!

We started our day with another bus tour. Now, these aren't really my favorite, but sometimes it was nice to just sit and stare out the window. And Aberdeen is just beautiful! We stopped at the Cathedral Church of St. Machar along our tour and ended up singing a couple songs in an impromptu concert. It was pretty cool.

After our tour, we ate lunch. We found this super cute pub that had great food (I had a potato) and drinks and a huge screen that was playing rugby while we were eating. It was a great break before practice.

After lucnh, we headed off to choir practice. Definitely one of my favorite parts of this whole trip was getting the opportunity to sing in these absolutely gorgeous cathedrals and churches. It's just such an amazing experience that not many people get.

After practice,we had dinner. It was okay. We ate at an Italian restaurant and Italian food just doesn't settle well with my stomach. After that, we got changed into our formal concert attire. We then performed our concert. It went great. We drove back to the hotel and my friends and I got ready for that night. It was just so much fun. We went to 3 bars and 2 nightclubs. It was one of the best nights we had while in Scotland. I just loved it.

Scotland: Day 5: St. Andrews

Perhaps you've heard of St. Andrews. It's the birthplace of golf! However, if you're not a golfer (like myself) this town is still completely adorable!

So we started our day driving to this cute little town. Although I suppose it's probably not that small. We just only saw a small portion of it. We walked around for a little while and saw the beautiful downtown area with lots of little shops and plenty of places to eat.

For lunch, we chose Vic. They call themselves a "Pub/Kitchen and Social Pub". It was so cute! There were board games to play on shelves. It was one big room with a bar on one side. I ended up getting the mac and cheese with garlic bread. It was so delicious!! I loved it. They weren't very busy while we were there, but I have a feeling more people show up at night.

After lunch, we walked a little further down the road and found this adorable little French place where we ordered some crepes for dessert. Oh My Gosh. So good!

We walked around a little more before we found a friend of ours and ducked into a pub for a drink. After our drink, the people I was with wanted to do a little shopping for the golf lovers in their lives. Then, my favorite part of the day, we climbed some rocks. That may sound silly, but it was so much fun! This was a group of rocks that jutted out into the water that gave such beautiful views and frankly, it was just amazingly peaceful. I could have sat there all day!

We hopped on the bus again and headed off to Aberdeen. We had a choir rehearsal followed by dinner. It was so good. I had a haggis stuffed chicken that was delicious.

Scotland: Day 4: Edinburgh

Scotland is so much fun! Here's what I did on Day 4 of my vacation.

We started the day by visiting Edinburgh Castle. Oh my goodness! It was seriously gorgeous. You can see this castle from so many different locations around town. But even more beautiful are the rooms inside this wonderful castle. There is so much history here. We spent quite a bit of time (about 3 hours, I believe) here and we still didn't see everything. We also didn't spend nearly as much time outside as we would have liked since it was raining (shocked, I'm sure). I think my favorite room was the room with the royal jewels. I have seriously never seen anything so beautiful! I saw a real life crown...in person! It was surreal. However, you are not aloud to take pictures in this room. Sad, I know. The best thing you CAN take pictures of are the AMAZING views of the city! I could have stood there and looked at those views forever.

After our great adventure through the castle, we walked to a place called "The Castle Arms" for lunch. It was very cool. The ceiling was fun to look at to see all the fun sayings that were artistically put there. I, again, had sausages for lunch. This time, they were put in a bread bowl. It was delicious! I would highly recommend this place to eat.

After lunch, we walked over to the Scotch Whisky Experience. It's definitely cheesy. But it's definitely fun! Do it! If you're on the fence about it, do it! First, you ride in a seat (that fits three) that looks like a super large whisky barrel. You go through this long winding "hallway" that explains how whisky is made. It is actually very informative regardless how cheesy it seems. Then, when the ride is finished, you are led to a room that has 3 rows of bench seating. You are given a card that has rub and sniff spots on it to follow along with a video that you watch to talk about the different kinds of whisky and the different regions it's made. Then, you are led into another room where you select the type of whisky that you want to taste. But you don't taste it yet. You are led into yet another room that has the world's largest collection of whisky where you are taught the proper way to taste. And you get to keep the glass! It was an amazing experience that I'm super glad we experienced.

We then walked around and did some shopping then headed back to our hotel. We freshened up and then headed back out for dinner. We went to the Gourmet Mash Bar. Oh my! It was amazing. Those were simply the BEST mashed potatoes I had ever had in my entire life and I will always compare every potato to those potatoes and I have a feeling nothing will ever live up to them! haha I'm kind of joking. But really, they were very good. And atop my potatoes was a very tender hunk of ox cheek. Oh boy, was it tender. Eat here!

After our amazing day, we had even more fun! We went to a couple bars and stayed out til the wee hours of the morning. I absolutely love the people that I hung out with, but for the safety of your feet, plan your adventures ahead of time instead of blindly following someone else's suggestions. We walked SOOO much more than we had to. It was horrible. That being said, here's where we went.
1. The Doric
This bar was fine. It wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a nice little quiet bar.

2. Halfway House
This is a very small bar, but it was fine. I wouldn't say it was overly cool, but we had fun.

3. Frankenstein Bar
This bar was so much fun. All of their drinks were themed around Frankenstein and they make them strong and delicious. However, they are kind of expensive. We had lots of fun here.

4. Finnegan's Wake
This was the last, and most fun, bar we visited. It's a decently-sized Irish pub on Victoria Street. They had a live band the night we were there (but I'm pretty sure they have a live band every night). They were so packed! It was just so much fun. They sang songs that everyone knew. The whole bar was singing along. Oh my gosh. I wish there was a bar like this where I live. We stayed for hours before finally walking back to our hotel.