Scotland: Getting There Was Half the Battle

Cancelled, delayed, rerouted, knackered

We were supposed to fly at 6am, which meant bag drop at 4am, which meant getting everybody up at some ungodly hour and actually managing to have all of us ready and out the door on time. A small miracle in itself. And then, right as we were about to leave, a message came in: flight cancelled.

I cursed EasyJet with every word I could think of.

We sent the girls back to bed, because it was clear none of us were getting on a plane in the next couple of hours, and we went on a hunt for anything that could get us to Edinburgh that same day. The original plan had been simple enough: Lisbon to London, train to Edinburgh, pick up the rental car, drive forty minutes to our hotel in Glenrothes. Instead we found a flight from Lisbon to Edinburgh with a layover somewhere in Germany, landing at 11pm. Fine. We were back on!

Except, of course, it couldn’t be that easy. The first leg ran late and we had to run (literally!) for the connecting gate. Mind, we were travelling with my in-laws, so it wasn’t just us running like mad. We made it, though, and our hopes climbed right back up, because we were, technically, back on schedule.

Then we landed in Edinburgh and called the car rental place, the same one we’d very thoroughly warned about our lateness earlier that day, and who had assured us it was okay, all absolutely fine. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. There was no car. Not that evening, anyway. So we got a taxi, paid £140 (!!), and finally rolled into the hotel in Glenrothes past 1am, completely wrecked. But we were in Scotland. Finally.

The car saga, and our first castle

The next day, two of us went back to Edinburgh to sort out the car. That’s a whole other story I won’t get into here, except to say we ended up switching rental companies entirely, and it was well past midday before we were actually on our way to our first real destination. But after so many setbacks, we were moving. Properly moving.

Halfway to Aberdeen we stopped for lunch at a place that turned out to be genuinely beautiful, and it was somewhere around there that Scotland started showing off: green everywhere, meadows rolling out on either side, sheep, more sheep, the occasional cow surveying it all like it owned the place. More sheep…

We stopped in Stonehaven for our first castle view: Dunnottar, perched on a cliff above the North Sea, a ruin that’s apparently been fought over and lived in for something like 1,500 years. With the sea crashing on three sides of it, it’s the kind of view that makes you understand instantly why someone built a fortress there. It was beautiful.

By the time we got to Aberdeen we were still reeling a bit from the day before, so we kept it simple: dinner at the hotel restaurant. First fish and chips of the trip.

Fittie, and neeps and tatties

The next morning we drove around Aberdeen and stopped at Footdee, known locally as Fittie, a wee former fishing village tucked at the mouth of the harbour. The cottages there were laid out in the early 1800s to rehouse Aberdeen’s fishermen, built in tight little squares with their backs turned to the sea for shelter from the wind. Every house seemed to have its own miniature garden crammed with driftwood, shells, and odd little decorations, like each family had quietly been competing with the neighbours for a hundred years. The girls had an absolute blast exploring the little lanes, and we were properly in awe of the tiny houses and everything squeezed into their gardens.

From there it was back on the road toward Inverness, with a stop at Ballindalloch-Kirkmichael, where we walked a short way up to a slightly elevated point and just took in the landscape. Lochs and mountains and green plains, stitched together like that’s just how the country comes. And sheep. O’course.

Inverness gave us a proper challenge finding a pub with room for all of us, but we managed it eventually, sitting down to a meal while watching Portugal vs Spain (we’re not talking about that one). I had neeps and tatties, mashed swede and mashed potato, traditionally the sidekick to haggis, and yes, that’s the name, and I loved it. Our stop for the night was Muir of Ord, where we slept at an Airbnb that used to be an actual bank. Very cool.

So far, so Scotland

Those were our first three days in Scotland: a flight that wasn’t, a car that didn’t exist, a castle on a cliff, a fishing village full of tiny gardens, and a bank turned bedroom. And through all of it, this country kept unveiling itself in the same quiet, slow-living way: lochs and mountains and green plains, dotted endlessly with sheep and cows, like it wasn’t even trying.

There’s more to come.

Stay tuned.

(and yes, I heard how that sounded in my head too. More photos coming anyway.)