Kilchurn, Glencoe, and a bridge that’s earned its fame
After Oban we drove past Kilchurn Castle, a 15th-century ruin sitting right out on Loch Awe. It’s been a Campbell stronghold since the 1440s, and when the loch level rises enough, the whole castle looks like it’s floating in the water. It’s one of those views you just have to stop for, though the water level was low when we visited. It was still amazing to see.
On our way to Glasgow, we drove through Glencoe, with Buachaille Etive Mòr standing guard at the entrance to the glen (the valley), that huge mountain that greets you off the highway (was it a highway? maybe) and is basically Scotland’s most photographed peak. We stopped the car and hiked around for a bit, had lunch at a little table right next to the trail, facing straight into the mountain views. Breathtaking doesn’t really cover it.
From there we carried on to the Bridge of Orchy, a single-arched stone bridge built in 1751 as part of General Wade’s military road network, put up in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprisings to move troops through the Highlands faster. These days it just quietly sits there being pretty. We admired it, took our pictures, and got back in the car, Glasgow-bound.
Glasgow: early dinner, late stroll
We arrived early enough to have dinner early too, mostly so no one could kick us out for having kids with us (we’d learned our lesson). We found a really nice meal at the end of the street from our hotel, then went for a stroll around the neighbourhood and its park, where the girls played on the playground and got very invested in the squirrels, and, less charmingly, some rats eating fast food.
The tiniest, most stubborn tick
The next morning, while we were packing up to head to Edinburgh, I spotted the tiniest tick on Leo’s neck. No cause for alarm, I told myself. I’m a country girl, I’ve pulled ticks off dogs and sheep more times than I can count (and apparently off myself as a kid too, my mother informed me after the fact). But this one was absurdly tiny, and I didn’t want to risk pulling and leaving the head lodged in her skin. I always carry tweezers. Except, of course, this trip I didn’t.
We went to a clinic next door, where they sold us a plastic tick remover I’d never seen before, and it turned out to be entirely useless against something that small. So: hospital. We drove to one, walked in hand in hand with Leo, Keoshi half a step ahead, and immediately clocked that something was off. Everything felt cold and still, no movement anywhere, the kind of quiet that makes you brace for something. No zombies emerged, but we walked on a security guard, mid-mouthful of chicken, clearly unimpressed at being interrupted, and told us flatly: no doctors, hospital closed, and pointed us toward the next one.
Twenty minutes of traffic later, hospital number two was at least full of people, which felt promising, until I noticed almost everyone in the waiting area was well into their seventies. Wrong hospital again, but this time they pointed us in the right direction: the Royal Hospital for Children, on the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital campus. Tick-free in twenty minutes, no charge, arachnid vanquished. Happy as clams, we got back in the car and carried on to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, finally
We got to the apartment, dropped off the rental car, and had a very necessary lunch at Edinburgh Street Food to recover from the morning we’d had. Then we started exploring, and I fell for the city almost immediately. It’s not a big place, but it’s full of little corners and little shops I wanted to wander into slowly, and I’ve already told myself I’m going back soon.
That evening we had dinner at Dishoom, a meal packed with flavour from start to finish, and took a taxi home through a foggy Edinburgh evening that made the whole city feel even more mystical than it already did. I loved every second of it.
One more scare, and a very long way home
The next day brought another turn: my father-in-law was in real pain and had to go to hospital. While my in-laws dealt with their fair share of hospitals, we kept exploring Edinburgh and crossed our fingers hard, since we were flying home the following day and needed good news. He ended up admitted overnight for IV antibiotics for an infection, and for a while it wasn’t clear if he’d be well enough to fly with us, it all hinged on the fever breaking. It did. Relief doesn’t begin to cover it.
We all reunited at Edinburgh Waverley station and caught the train down to London, a four-hour journey that’s genuinely lovely, the landscape the whole way down doesn’t let up. In London we crossed over to King’s Cross for the train out to the airport, and from there it was smooth sailing… except, of course, not, not on this trip.
Twenty minutes into the flight, Leo told me she wasn’t feeling well. I got her a paper bag, told her to breathe, and she did exactly that, right before throwing up everything she’d eaten on the train, in the bag and on herself. The cabin crew were incredible, kept bringing wet towels, extra bags, the works, and about half an hour later Leo emerged declaring she felt so much better. We landed in Lisbon roughly an hour after that.
So, yes. An eventful trip, start to finish: cancelled flights, a missing rental car, ticks, two hospital visits neither of them planned. And I still want to go back to Edinburgh. Oh, I really do.
tell me what you think!