Highland trip - with the Pares!

August is probably the best month to visit Scotland, because you have the best chance of getting temperatures that are consistently about 12 degrees. Sure, that doesn't mean it won't rain - it is Scotland, after all. There's a superstition in the UK that, if it rains on St Swithun's day, 15 July, it will rain for 40 days - not Noah's Ark-style, but at some time on each of the next 40 days. Sure enough, it rained on 15 July and the saying came true.

Nevertheless, G's parents braved the weather and stayed with us for four weeks in August. Pretty much from the moment we decided to move over here for a few years, D&I indicated their intention to visit us. Having never been overseas before, this was a pretty major decision for them. But, in what felt like no time, we were greeting them at the airport in Edinburgh after their three day journey from Bundaberg to Scotland. They wisely chose to stay overnight in Singapore to combat the jetlag, and again in London before flying up to Edinburgh. It seemed to be a smart move, as they weren't as affected by jetlag as we were when we first arrived in Edinburgh.

D&I arrived on Thursday, and on Saturday we picked up a rental car and headed off on a journey north to the Highlands. We had booked accommodation for the first three nights of the trip, which was smart given the crowds of tourists in Scotland during August. During our first day, we drove northwest to Glencoe. G and I had been through there in April with my parents, and it was still as beautiful as we remembered, and a bit busier. At one point, we stopped at a carpark to admire the view, and a piper, obviously to capitalise on the tourists, started playing. D, excited by a genuine bagpiper, threw a few coins into his busking box and crept sidewards towards him for a photograph.

That night we stayed in Fort William at a quaint B&B, and had dinner at a local pub. [G takes over writing] That was Dad's first experience of haggis (he quite liked it) and even Mum tried a mouthful. Only one though. On a side note, I went for a jog before dinner, tackling in advance it's size, ingredients and liquid accompaniment. Going for a run at the foot of Ben Nevis was awesome. I felt like I was in one of those motivational posters (mind you, they normally have someone a lot fitter than me who doesn't look like they are having trouble breathing).

The next day was mostly wet. Good coffee drinking weather. It wasn't cold by Scottish standards, but not particularly warm. We drove up the Great Glen, stopping in at Fort Augustus to show Mum and Dad the locks in action. We didn't linger over Loch Ness and decided it was a bit too miserable to visit castle Urquhart. Dad and I did get out at the carpark and attempted to peer over the hedge to have a look at it (you have to pay to get in, and they do a pretty good job of making it difficult to see it unless you do so). Mum declined the excursion. It was pretty wet and she's not silly.

We headed further north and turned off to the west before Inverness. Lunch was at a little place called Beauly, in the car, in the carpark of the local firestation, overlooking a field with a cow in it. Yep.

Ullapool was pretty, with most buildings painted white, but quite busy. After settling in to our B&B and resting up, we tramped around for quite a while looking for a place to eat that wasn't a) massively busy, b) ridiculously expensive or c) both. Ullapool, for heaven's sake!

The drive the next day around the northwest coast was amazing. Around every bend a new vista would open up. Craggy peaks, green valleys and countless lochs with islands rising out of them. The photos can't do it justice. It was hard to concentrate on the driving, particularly with being single lane nearly all of the way. Whenever another vehicle was coming towards us, one of us would have to pull over in a designated passing place to let the other go by. This sometimes involve reversing for a distance, and once reversing up hill while a tourist bus bore down upon us, right on the edge of a cliff.

We did a detour along the way to a place called Achiltibuie, as we (that is, me... I mean, I) wanted to visit the Achiltibuie Smokehouse. Before finding the place, we erroneously detoured up a couple of very narrow lanes in a nearby village, slowly chasing bunch of raggedy, panic stricken sheep to great comic effect. We stayed that night in Thurso. The lady who owned the B&B was inspiringly unwelcoming, but it was a nice place.

The next day we stopped in at Dunnet Head, the actual northern most point on the UK mainland, not John O'Groats as widely thought. We also stopped at John O'Groats: a truly cheesy, soul-less little spot, where you can pay 20 pounds for the privilege of having your photo taken next to a signpost indicating your location (i.e. the (supposed) northern most point in the UK). The signpost is roped off and, according to numerous warning signs, taking a photo of the signpost from outwith the roped of area and not paying 20 pounds is liable to engage the wrath of the official signpost photographer.

We pootled down to Inverness, the west coast not particularly exciting us. It was only after visiting the tourist office that we fully realised the folly of not pre-booking accommodation in Scotland during summer. As it turned out, the nearest accommodation was Aberdeen. So at 3pm, after having been looking forward to a 5-10min drive to a B&B, we were off for another 3 hour trip. Not happy. On the plus side, our accommodation in Aberdeen was a very well priced hotel with a great little bar downstairs, which was a kind of mini-nirvana for this tired and grumpy driver. For some reason, the Guinness they had on tap was exceptionally good, although I had to have second one to be sure it wasn't a fluke. We didn't bother venturing any further afield for dinner.

We headed west the next day and, at the advice of a jovial tourist info employee at Banchory, we investigated the falls of Feugh, where Dad got some great video of salmon jumping up the falls. It was an amazing sight, and we were all impressed at these mighty fish trying to jump up the very fast-flowing water. It was rare that we saw one of them actually make it any distance up the falls, and not get knocked down again. They were all so valiant, and it was hard not to admire their bravery to just keep hurling themselves up the river again and again.

A short drive later we went to Balmoral Castle, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. It was not open to the public at that time of year so we contented ourselves with a slow drive by, snapping off a couple of furtive photos of the front gates and a flock of suspicious, stony faced police officers. We also saw there our only red squirrel of the trip. Of course, no trip to Balmoral Castle would be complete without a trip to Queen Victoria's local, the Royal Lochnagar distillery. Just popped in to buy a bottle.

From there, we drove home.

Nothing much more to say about that. It was good to get home, but I think we all had taken back with us images of the north-west highlands, and would love to get back up there again.

Blogger is being extremely slow to upload photos, so here are a few to keep you going.

G with some wonderful flat rocks, perfect for skipping across the water at Ullapool.

In front of the misty mountains north of Ullapool.

A stormy island in the middle of a loch.

In the freezing cold river at the foot of Ben Nevis. Gosh, it was cold.

So, where were we..?

So.

It's been five months since we've updated the blog. This has largely been because it's been a busy five months, and once we lost the momentum of regular updates it was hard to get back on the wagon. Plus, uploading photos takes forever, and as we have so many to share it wasn't an appealing idea to start the process.

A quick run down of the past five months would look like this:

• A trip to London for G's birthday, including seeing Wicked on the West End.
• A trip around the Scottish highlands.
• Enjoying the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (including a fabulous celebrity sighting).
• A weekend in Ayr, possibly during the worst weather all summer.
• A week in Wales and south England.
• A long weekend in Paris.
• Having M&B stay for the weekend.
• Having G's parents stay for four weeks.
• Having C's sister H stay for seven nights.
• Having friend P stay for the weekend.
• Going to an awesome Coldplay concert in Glasgow.
• G changing jobs.
• C quitting her job (really).
• Going through an arduous house hunting process, then deciding not to move after receiving a drop in the rent.

Anyway, that's the short story. Now for the long version.....

Yorrrrk!

Beyond 'Ecky thump' (and that might have not even have been from Yorkshire), we didn't really know much about York. But the Lonely Planet guide raved about how lovely the city is, and we'd heard similar comments from people who have been there. It's only 2.5 hours from Edinburgh, so a few weeks ago we woke up early and hopped on the 8am train from Waverley station. There was a very loud hen party across the aisle from us, which generously shared their awful taste in music with everyone in the carriage.

We had looked for accommodation on the internet the few weeks before hand, but had no luck aside from the very high-end hotels, so we decided to turn up at the tourist info bureau at the train station and find a room through there. However, they told us that the perfect storm of an English long weekend, school holidays and a Roman Festival meant that there were very, very few empty rooms in the city. We watched while the tourist lady made phone calls to various hotels with no luck. Finally she managed to locate a room in a B&B about one mile from the city centre, which was a relief. She told us it was the 'last available room in York', which may have been an exaggeration, but we weren't arguing.

First stop was the B&B to drop off our bags, but on the way we had a treat. As previewed on the train from Edinburgh, York seemed to be hen and stag party capital that weekend, and ahead of us on the footpath were several men wearing only mankinis:

Under the ruse of taking photos of the nearby city walls, I managed to capture for posterity (for some reason). Click on the photo above for a larger image, if you dare... During the whole weekend we encountered many other stag and hen parties. Noice.

The B&B we were staying in was about three terrace houses knocked together, and our room had a four poster bed.

The room was stuffed full of odd bits of furniture, mismatched bedclothes, about a million pillows, while several other rooms that we walked past were overloaded with ornaments, knick-knacks, stuffed toys and dolls. It was a bit like AD's house, so we felt right at home.

Next stop was York Minster, which is touted as the best gothic cathedral in the UK. It lived up to the hype and more, and we were relatively happy enough to part with the hefty entrance fee. The undercroft had a tour of the foundations of the cathedral which was a great display of the 2000 year history of the site. It had orginally been a Roman garrison, which was demolished and a wooden church built on the site around 1000 AD. This was also razed and a stone cathedral built on top, which was later knocked down and the current York Minster built in its place.

The cathedral truly is amazing, with fancy ceilings:

Statues of lounging bishops:

The world's largest stained glass window, which is the size of a tennis court (this is actually a life-size print hanging in front of the window, which is currently being restored):

Impressive columns and perspectives:

Grotesque gargoyles by the hundred (this guy has his fingers jammed into his eyelid and mouth):

We made the trek up to the top of the tower, which is 275 steps up a very narrow and winding stair case. 275 steps doesn't sound that much when you're on the ground floor, but at about step 123 you rethink this assessment. But the views were spectacular, even if we were all fenced in to prevent people from jumping from the roof. This is the view halfway up (or down) the cathedral:

Outside the Minster we were lucky enough to spot an "authentic" "Roman" "parade", complete with Celtic prisoners:

After the Minster, we headed off to the one place in York we couldn't miss - Betty's Tearooms. There was a queue outside with about a 30 minute wait and it was a bit pricey, but gosh it was worth it. We ordered the Yorkshire tea, consisting of two fruit scones, Yorkshire cream and strawberry jam, but didn't expect it to arrive in such style:

It was just so posh and elegant and typically British. I've never felt more like a character from an Enid Blyton novel, even though there weren't any servings of tongue. The queues outside suddenly became more understandable. It's no surprise that at random times over the past few weeks, one of us will say "Mmmm, remember the food at Betty's..?" and we'll both start to drool.

After cramming in the 1 million calories of afternoon tea, some gentle exercise was in order. The original Norman (or Roman? can't remember) city walls still surround the old city, although some sections have been demolished. Nevertheless, it is still possible to walk about 3.5 miles on the walls themselves, which is pretty flash.

Taking a break halfway through the walk:

G climbing the stairs at one point:

Roman ruins partway along the wall:

The next morning, the B&B hostess was a bit miffed when we turned down the full English Breakfast (bacon, sausages, fried eggs, tomato, mushrooms and hash browns) in favour of cereal and toast. We certainly didn't need to add a further 1 million calories to our bodies after the outing to Betty's the day before. Avoiding the glare of the hostess, we checked out of the hotel and left our luggage at the train station (for a pretty steep £10 per bag) and walked back into the old town to the Jorvik Centre. York was the site of a Viking settlement about 1,000 years ago, and the Centre, which is right in the middle of the old town, shows archaeological finds from digging that has gone on since about 1975. There's a ride that takes visitors through a reconstruction of the viking settlement, complete with authentic odour (it would not have been a pleasant place to live, if the smell was anything to go by). One of the models depicted a man, with a particularly contorted facial expression, sitting on a Viking lavatory. We thought this rather odd, as it's not usually something that is shown at ye olde reconstructions. However, as we entered section with display cabinets and posters providing further information about the Vikings, the reason for the straining man became apparent: there were four separate references to the euphemistically-named 'Jorvik stool', which was dug up by some lucky archaeologist. The Centre seemed inordinately proud of this relic from a by-gone era, but I'm not sure how many of the visitors shared the joy.

Following that close encounter, we nipped over to the Shambles, which is the oldest part of the old town. The streets are very narrow and winding, and have many touristy shops. We of course succumbed to the tourist-aimed chocolate shop and had one sweet each, paid for by the £1 coin found on the footpath that morning. Hooray for observation! We came across a market, but it was just like the kind of market you could find anywhere so we didn't linger. Soon it was time for G to depart for a tour of York's oldest, traditional brewery and for me to look for some shoes as mine were becoming increasingly less comfortable.

G reported that his tour was good, but as he was the only person on the tour it was a bit strange. Wanting to interact with the guide, he responded to some of the things he was saying and asked questions, but it quickly became clear that the guide wasn't happy departing from his prepared spiel. But the free pint of beer that was thrown in with the tour price seemed to do the trick and make things better.

We met up again for lunch, and then wandered down to the river to hop onto a cruise boat. The weather was the best we've seen it in the UK - sunny, warm, blue sky, with little chance of rain. The boat was busy, but we managed to snag seats on the top deck. The trip was around an hour, and motored downstream into the countryside. The boat passed the residence of the Archbishop of York:

and the Terry's chocolate orange factory....mmmmm...:

The highlight of the boat trip, however, was undoubtedly passing two young men on the river bank, one of whom had obviously just been for a dip in the water. As our boat passed, the swimmer stripped off entirely, bringing the total of naked bums seen in York to three. It caused quite a stir among the boat passengers and more than one person quickly took photos, though I'm not entirely sure why.

Making the most of the sunshine, we had a bit of a lie down in the botanic gardens until our train was due to depart. Not surprisingly, the gardens were packed with people with the same idea. (And to show that we have completely forgotten all of the slip-slop-slap advice that was drummed into every Queenslander from a young age, the next day we were both sunburnt. Although to be fair, no one expects to get sunburn in England.)

A few more random photos...

Ye olde house (note the period Pizza Hut next door):

Think this is Clifford Tower? There were lots of aggressive geese on the grass outside:

The really old town hall, about 600 years old or something similarly impressive. Naturally, we arrived two minutes before closing time:

Prague: The photo evidence

Here are the promised photos of Prague. I've tried to make them larger than the photos in previous posts, but I'm not sure how successful it's been.

This is us outside St Vitus' Cathedral at Prague castle. Note the amazingly blue sky in the background - our first really good weather since leaving Brisbane seven months go!

This will hopefully give an idea of the huge crowds of tourists at the castle. Click on the photo for a larger image (if the experiment to resize them hasn't been successful). There were thousands and thousands of tourists around.

A random building in the old town. Think it's a theatre or a restaurant, or possibly both.

Statue of King Wenceslas in his eponymous square. I didn't see this in the flesh, as I was having a nap back at the hotel due to my horrid cold.

Megan and Brett at the Prague brewery (with the stinky person at the next table).

The interior of the Estates Theatre, all ye-olde and decorated. Very cool.

The chandelier at the Estates Theatre.

View from the castle gardens of the winding streets down to the river.

On the Charles Bridge, early morning. Another day with blue skies! The castle is in the background - that might be St Vitus' Cathedral...?

The Old Town, with the Astronomical Clock on the lefthand side. Note the crowds of tourists.

Kafka's house. Pretty cool building, even without that claim to fame.

The Astronomical Clock in action. It has lots of random dials and hands and pictures. No one really knows exactly what it all means.

View of some fancy buildings from our boat cruise.

View of the Charles Bridge from the opposite bank. Note the crowds of tourists.

A statue near the Kafka museum. Yes, the figures are doing what you think they are doing. You can even text a word or name or phrase to them and they will spell it out for you; the perfect gift for someone who has everything.

Prague Spring

This is a belated post as we went to Prague (and promised a blog entry) some time ago. Anyway.

It was a long weekend and we took off an extra day to give us a good break.

On the Thursday evening we flew to Altenburg airport. Just one runway, next to a tin shed and serviced only by Ryanair. There didn't see to be any physical restriction to wandering off out of the airport once stepping off the plane, I guess they rely on people doing the right thing in a country where law enforcement officers and other security personnel carry big guns. Really big guns. After the usual scare when immigration lingered worryingly over my passport, we jumped on a bus to Leipzig where we were staying that night. (Getting to Prague via Leipzig was much cheaper and gave us more time to sightsee). I had thought I might get a chance to sample a specialty Leipzig beer known as Gose. It's made with coriander and salt. Sounds digusting but would have been worth trying for novelty value. Unfortunately, we never really got the chance as we were well ready for bed when we arrived and didn't have much time in the next morning to go beer hunting.

The train trip to Prague was lovely, as the line runs much of the way next to the Elbe River at the bottom of the valley. It was a lovely sunny day and we passed through loads of little villages strung out along the river. Our carriage was quiet, luckily as it turns out, as the next carriage along had a group of several German lads, presumably off on a stag weekend, who were very loud, drunk and stinky, and clogging up the aisle. I had to squeeze past der Chappie who was pouring another glass from their keg.

One thing about Prague: there are an awful lot of smokers and it's not against the law to smoke in a public place, as far as we could tell. The lobby of the hotel we stayed at got pretty rank at times while we were there. Eating out was a particularly hazardous exercise, and not just because the Czech love their stodgy, carbo-loaded meals. The highlight was when we had coffee in the hotel cafe, and were the only people in a room with about thirty tables. Another couple came in and sat down at the table right next to ours. And proceeded to smoke their incredibly disgusting cigarettes. We moved into the next room, receiving a semi-glare from the smokers when we explained to the bemused waiter why we were leaving.

Megan and Brett were accompanying us on this trip and we were due to arrive in the evening sometime. We didn't know when exactly so decided to have dinner (we were pretty ravenous). We went to a semi touristy place (English on the menu, but Czechy sort of food and not touristy prices) where I had, as it turned out, the best beer and the stodgiest (think potato dumplings and heavy bread) food of the trip.

The next day all four of us walked to the castle and were confronted by a sickening abundance of tourists. The castle area covers a huge area and contains many buildings, including St Vitus' Cathedral. You can walk around for free but have to pay to enter the buildings, apart from the Cathedral. Almost all of the buildings had huge queues to enter and the cathedral's would have been an least an hour, probably more. We went into one building that was not quite so crowded, which housed 'The Story of Prague Castle'. It was quite good, not least because it wasn't busy, although C. did get told off in loud, broken English by an official for touching a wooden door (apparently it was old, or some rubbish like that).

We decided to come back later that afternoon, in the wistful hope that the crowds may have died down, and trotted off to look for lunch.

Afterwards, with me grinning the grin that only a man who has just eaten 8 grilled chicken wings can grin, we went on a very touristy boat ride on the river. It was about what you'd expect. Earlier we had seen a very surprising sign in the river, warning not to swim because of the sharks! I asked the guide on the boat about that and he said that some years ago a dead shark was found in the river and the sign was put up just in case. It turned out that a restaurant near the river had had a dead shark flown in to be part of a display and had thrown it into the river afterwards. I'm not sure what was more improbable, the sign or his story, but either way, something smelled fishy and it wasn't just the shark.

As we about to de-ship, C got loudly told off for the second time that day for briefly sticking her arm out from the edge of the boat. Whatever, man!

Poor old C was not having a good time regardless, as she had been fighting a cold all week and was now exhausted. She returned to the hotel for some much needed rest while M, B and I continued on. We went back to the castle and visited a few more of the buildings/sights but unanimously decided that they really weren't worth it. The queue to the Cathedral was still diabolical so we left it for some other time.

Dinner was pizza at 'sit down on the street under a tent' type of place, notable only because the waitress spoke no English (it's amazing what you can communicate with smiles, nods and pointing). We're pretty sure she thought we were French.

Anyway, C. now takes up the story.

The next day, after breakfast in the incredibly busy hotel dining room (which probably housed about ten different bus loads of tourists), we headed out to the Old Town. The first stop was the Charles Bridge, which is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Prague. We had seen it from the other side of the river and from the tourist boat the day before, and the crowd on it was so thick that it was at a standstill. This was partly because one half of the Old Town end was blocked off by scaffolding, but it was still incredibly clogged by tourists. But because we were there pretty early, we managed to walk on it relatively speedily. It would have looked a lot more attractive without the scaffolding, but it was still lovely.

Then we headed into the proper parts of the Old Town, led by B who seems to have Google maps built into his brain. We saw the astronomical clock, which is weird and cool and large. It was about 10.30 when we arrived, so we settled in with some coffee to wait for the 11am chiming of the clock. The lonely planet guide warned that the display on the hour would be short, bizarre and somewhat of a letdown, and it was all three. The highlight was undoubtedly the strange 'raspberry' sound at the conclusion of the show. I'm not sure the huge crowd that had gathered at the base of the clock was entirely convinced, but anyway.

We then wandered to the Estates Theatre and bought tickets for that evening's performance of 'Rinaldo' by Handel. The Estates Theatre is old, and was where Mozart personally conducted the premiere of 'Don Giovanni'...pretty impressive. After wandering through the Old Town some more, we had lunch at a Sushi Station-type place, though with a much faster-moving conveyer belt. It was a bit like a competitive sport to get the plates out of the display case in time. After lunch, I headed back to the hotel for another nap before the theatre that night. G, M & B went to St Wenceslas Square to see the sights, and then to a ye olde brewery/pub for some Czech beer. Apparently I was lucky to miss the brewery, as the party at the next table included a gentleman to whom deodorant was clearly a stranger. Not fun.

We met back at the hotel then headed off to the theatre. It was such an experience, as it was such a beautiful theatre on the inside. Picture period films with scenes set at the opera. The theatre is always about six storeys high, with lots of private boxes, a decorative ceiling, and a giant chandelier. The Estates Theatre had all this, which was pretty spectacular. We weren't able to find four seats together, so M & I sat together at the end of a row while the gentlemen were halfway across the theatre. We were lucky that we were in the front row and could lean onto the railing, as otherwise we would not have been able to read the surtitles (which were in both Czech and English). 'Rinaldo' was well performed and the singers were great, but the plot itself lacks excitement. It's as though Handel had written 90% of the show, then realised it was premiering in one week so hastily finished the story off with a "they all lived happily ever after" conclusion. None of us knew anything about Rinaldo, so we were all surprised when the second act came to an end and nothing seemed to have been wrapped up. Let's just say, when we realised that there was a third act to come, we seriously considered leaving at that point and looking up the plot on Wikipedia to see how it ended. But, we put the hard yards in.

After the theatre, G and I decided to have a bite to eat at a restaurant in the main square. It was so much nicer at night, all lit up and mostly empty of tourists. However, they all came flooding out of the woodworks at 10.57pm to gather around the astronomical clock for the 11pm chiming. How disappointed they must have been to realise that it only chimes between 9am and 9pm.

The next morning the breakfast room was considerably quieter, as most of the tour buses had already left for the day. We lingered over breakfast, as it was rainy outside and we didn't fancy going out. But eventually we did, checking out and leaving our stuff in the luggage room. We popped back to the castle, and were amazed to see about 30,000 fewer people there than on Saturday. We joined the queue for St Vitus' Cathedral, which was about one fifth the length that it had been, but was still about a fifteen minute wait. It rained the whole time we were waiting there, which was unfortunate as we didn't have umbrellas. I'm not sure if it was my foreign accent or the fact that I had wrapped my scarf over my head, but the weird old man in front of us in the queue kept turning round to stare at me. It was unpleasant. He must have been German.

St Vitus' Cathedral is extremely impressive inside, huge, with giant stained glass windows. It was well worth the wait to see it (though we may not have thought that if we'd spent an hour in the queue). After the cathedral, we wandered through the streets below the castle and found a cafe for some coffee. Megan and the waiter didn't hit it off for some reason - he was very brusque with her when she asked for tea instead of coffee for the coffee-and-cake deal, and then spilt some of the tea on her leg, burning her. She did not leave him a tip.

After making our way back to the hotel, we said goodbye to Brett, who was spending another few days in the Czech Republic and was heading off to another town. Shortly afterwards, M, G & I hopped on the airport bus, which stopped outside the hotel. G and I both validated our tickets upon entering the bus, but for some reason M forgot to do so....and was busted by a Czech transport inspector for not having a valid ticket. She suggested that if she leant slightly forward in her seat she'd be able to punch the ticket in the machine, but he refused this offer and ordered her to pay a 700 koruny fine (equivalent to about $45). The most annoying part was that we could hear other people validating their tickets in the machine after they saw Megan had been busted. He didn't care about this, as he had snagged his victim for that trip. Megan didn't have the money on her, so he said that was fine, he'd follow her into the airport and wait while she got the money from an ATM. And he literally did follow us into the airport and stood by while she got the money out. The fine plus the experience with the waiter did not endear Prague to Megan. (And, to add insult to injury, Brett was fined later in the week for being in a slow, all-stations train when he only had a ticket for the fast, express service. So the moral is - make sure your public transport tickets are valid in Prague!)

We said farewell to an irritated Megan, and started the first leg of our two flight journey home. This involved flying from Prague to Bristol, then Bristol to Edinburgh. The first flight was on Ryan Air, which is not a boutique airline. We sat across the aisle from each other, as you can't book seats, and for some reason my row had about ten centimetres less leg room than G's. Fun. Our second flight was with EasyJet, which is like business class compared to Ryan Air. Nevertheless, we were pleased to get home after a long day of travel.

Photos of Prague to follow, as well as a description of last weekend's trip to York.

Yeah!

Photos as promised from previous post

Hi y'all.

Yeah, yeah, we promised photos a while ago and hadn't delivered...until now! We went to Prague last weekend, which was good (and bad), but will write a proper entry on that at some stage. Here, however, are photos from our travels around Scotland and the Highlands.

This is Traquair House, a ye olde stately home that now has its own brewery. Unfortunately, we didn't read the info about this place before going there, so we arrived about two hours before it opened. So, no beer for G and no history for those with more esoteric interests.

The entrance to Stirling Castle, which is a pretty big tourist attraction, but quite decent. Some crazy tourist had climbed on top of the wall and was walking around, oblivious to the guards yelling at her to "Come down from the wall!" They were angry with good reason, because if she'd fallen, the end result would not have been pretty.

This is a random (to us) cemetary outside the castle walls. While G & I were walking along the outer wall, we noticed a bunch of teenagers just to the left of the cemetary mooning the passing traffic. Noice.

I'm pretty sure this guy was paid to dress up in costume and talk to the tourists. Pretty sure.

Pretty gardens and tree in front of the Grand Palace, which was shut for renovations. Boo.

A windfarm in the hills overlooking Stirling. Scots are pretty environmentally conscious folk, so these are a common sight across the countryside.

Castle Urquhart (Oo-roo-ku-tay), on the banks of Loch Ness.

Loch Ness, with no sign of the Monster.

Yet another breathtaking view in the Highlands, this time near Ben Nevis. The mountain we were on was about half the height of Ben Nevis.

The sign says it all, really.

This is the view from our B&B at Fort William, overlooking Loch Linhe.

The remains of a random castle at Fort William. Can't remember its name right now, but it was old.

G. 'falling' off the outcrop, in Glen Nevis, at the foot of Ben Nevis. It was a single track road out to the foot of the mountain and it was really busy. It must be madness at peak times in summer.

Stream at the foot of Ben Nevis. The streams were running very strongly due to melting snow.

This is (I think?) Loch Linhe. The water was amazingly clear, and the road ran alongside the Loch for its length.

G investigating the local water life. He found a crab!

Beautiful scenery, near Glencoe.

Dad at a pond at the side of the road, at Glencoe.

Me and the Pares, outside of Glencoe.

Photo taken from the car. Really like this shot.

Coffee break on our road trip. Check out the size of those coffees!! There were many Shakespeare stops that day.

We went for a walk at Killiecrankie when a burly man in motorbike leathers stopped us to ask if we wanted to see a steam train, as there was one coming along the track in the next half hour. He was not the cliched train spotter, but he was really, really excited when the train came along.

Me, looking kind of unimpressed, in front of a mountain.

Melrose Abbey, with mountainside with gorse on it in the background.

Ruins of Melrose Abbey. It would have been cold there during the winter.

The Falkirk Wheel in action!