September 9 through 25th we rented a car at Heathrow and drove north to Scotland, returning to end with 2 days in London.
Oxford
Upon arriving at Heathrow, we rented a car and our first stop was the town of Oxford. We had time to wander around Oxford before our tour of the Bodlein Library. There is not a lot of parking available, but we were able to find a pay-and-display lot on St. Giles Street (£12 - 2 hours maximum). Otherwise there are outlying park-and-ride lots which are a 10 minute shuttle bus ride.
There are a few different tour options at Oxford University, and reservations should be made as soon as possible with this link.
Things to Do and See in Oxford:
- Radcliffe Camera
- Christ Church (Harry Potter film location or inspiration)
- Blackwell Bookstore
- Lots of gift shops dedicated to Harry Potter
- Climb University Church of St. Mary - 127 narrow twisting stairs of the 13th century bell tower for views
- Lunch at Vaults and Garden (affordable and unique location)
We did not stay for dinner or overnight, but other options are: dinner at Cuttlefish (seafood restaurant) or eat at one of the 20 different restaurants at the Covered Market in Oxford. We drove 2 hours north to stay overnight at the Courtyard Keele Staffordshire (great beds and night's sleep, and an awesome Scottish buffet breakfast in the morning).
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| View from University Church |
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| Radcliffe Camera |
Hadrian's Wall
On Day 2 we drove north and stopped to see Hadrian's wall. This Roman wall stretching 73 miles dates back to AD 122. There are numerous places to see and hike the wall as well as museums with artifacts and history. There a various Hadrian's wall visitor spots including Housesteads, Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum.
We went to Housesteads Roman Fort (in Hexham) to see the museum and remains of the fort (£9). There is a visitor center and gift shop and snack bar. If you hike a little ways from the fort there is a section of the wall you can walk on top of.
It was a 3 hour drive from Homesteads to Edinburgh and our hotel, The Raeburn, which is located in Stockbridge. We walked after dinner to the Scott Monument on Princes Street (23 minute walk). The city was busy with people for a Saturday night.
The Raeburn
Highly recommend staying at The Raeburn. This is a small hotel, but lots of charm and friendly staff. The restaurant was excellent and the location close to bus stop was very convenient. We enjoyed taking the bus into the city center, as well as the close CO-OP Food store next door.
Edinburgh
Great breakfast at The Raeburn hotel. Walked to St. Cuthberts and saw the Princes Street gardens and fountain. The Edinburgh Castle looms high above the gardens. The castle was closed due to the Queen's death. Walked to the Scottish National Museum which is a free and very interesting museum. Walked to the Grassmarket and ate at The Black Bull. We had dinner at David Bann vegetarian restaurant.
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| Princes Street Garden |
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| Scottish National Museum |
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| Victoria Street |
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| The Royal Mile |
On our 2nd day in Edinburgh we hiked Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags. When you go up, if you go counter-clockwise, there are some steep stairs to go up - we went clockwise and down the stairs. We ate dinner at Scran and Scallie which was very near the Raeburn. After a delicious dinner, took bus to the base of Calton Hill and walked around the interesting monuments. Arthur's Seat and Calton Hill would be excellent places to see the sunset.
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| Salisbury Crags |
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| Calton Hill |
On our last day, we took the bus into the city center for our scheduled tour of the Real Mary King's Close. This tour was very interesting, with much of it underground, and included lots of storytelling, for example about the bubonic plague. Photos are not allowed.
We left Edinburgh and stopped at Stirling Castle on our way north. We spent about 2 hours, including a 1-hour guided tour which was excellent. We could have stayed many hours here.
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| Stirling Castle |
On the way to Aviemore, where we would be staying for the night, we stopped at Duone Castle. We did not tour because it was about to close. Duone Castle was Castle Leoch in the show Outlander, and was also in the movie Monty Python and The Holy Grail.
In Aviemore, we stayed at High Range Hotel, which was clean and great bed and offered laundry facilities. We ate dinner at the Old Bridge Inn which had small menu but good food and very cozy atmosphere.
Cairngorm National Park
We started at the Glenmore Visitor Center and hiked 5.4 mile loop trail called Meall a' Bhuachaille. It was recommended to go clockwise, but not sure if either way is easier. There were some steep ups and downs and approximately 2000' elevation change. The view at the top was great but very windy.
Since we went clockwise, at end of the hike at the small lake there is an option to take an easier and flatter trail back to the car park to the left. The actual trail would have you stay to the right.
After hiking, we went to see the Culloden Battlefield which was interesting though the Visitor Center was closed when we arrived. We ate dinner in Inverness at Number 27 (small menu but had an excellent Cullen Skink (essentially seafood chowder)).
John O'Groats and Orkney Islands
We then drove 3 hours on dark narrow roads to town of John O'Groats where we stayed at John O'Groats Inn (part of Together Travel). We had some difficulty getting the key to our room (it is in a lock box) because instructions were unclear on the lock-off feature of our apartment. The place had a great view of the water and was walking distance from the ferry.
We booked the Orkney Day Tour from John O'Groats Ferries and highly recommend this tour. Book as many days in advance as you can, as it will likely fill up by the day you go. The tour included the 40 minute ferry, coach bus with tour guide, and Skara Brae entrance fee. You visit several of the Orkney Islands on the tour. Highlights included:
- Town of Kirkwall - only here an hour, and not enough time to see both the amazing Orkney Museum and St. Magnus Cathedral. Get a map at cathedral to see highlights (there are dungeons we heard about later). The guide did not tell us what to do in Kirkwall, just gave us free time.
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| Magnus Cathedral |
- Skara Brae - incredible ancient ruins of a neolithic village which was hidden under the sand dunes until 1850. You also get to see an old manor after the ruins.
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| Skara Brae |
- Ring of Brodgar - large ring of standing stones
- Standing Stones of Stenness - you can touch the stones here
- Town of Stromness - had lunch and ice cream here and walked the streets and window shopped
- Scapa Flow - 2nd largest natural port in the world
- The Churchill Barriers (bridges between the islands build during WWII to keep German submarines out of the naval base at Scapa Flow)
We drove back to Inverness after the return ferry and stayed at the Kings Mills Hotel which was very nice (and included a welcome taste of local Whisky)
Inverness
We walked along the River Ness after parking at Fisherman's Car Park. We saw St. Andrew's Episcopal Church and after crossing the river via the Victorian suspension bridge, saw another very old church: The Old High Church.
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| Inverness Castle as viewed from Ness Walk |
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| The Old High Church |
We then walked to the Victorian Market which was an indoor shopping space. We left Inverness and drove to Loch Ness. There are a lot of different parking options on side of road (some more obstructed than others for photo opportunities). Stopped at Urquhart Castle, but you cannot see the castle unless you pay (no view from parking lot). Our next stop was the Eilean Donan Castle, which we highly recommend. There was a fee for the castle as well as for the Car Park ("Pay and Display" they call it).
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| Eilean Donan Castle |
Isle of Skye
We took the free bridge to Skye which was very convenient after seeing Eilean Donan Castle. We stayed at the Cuillen Hills Hotel which is located above the town of Portree and has great views of town and water from the restaurant and some of the sleeping rooms. The restaurant had excellent food but not the best service.
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| View from Cuillen Hills Hotel |
The next day we hiked Old Man of Storr which was excellent despite the rain. We followed hiking recommendations from WalkHighlands.co.uk here. Then we drove to Mealt Falls (park in the upper parking lot for a shorter walk to the overlook). Driving along same highway we then stopped at Kilt Rock, which we heard you can often see whales. Last stop was our hike at the Quiraing Circuit. This is a loop, but it was raining so we did not hike all of it.
We ate dinner at Dulse & Brose restaurant which was excellent. We had great service and really enjoyed the raspberry tart dessert.
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| Old Man of Storr |
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| Kilt Rock |
Some of the roads on Skye are single track, and it takes longer to get to some of the sights. On our second day on Skye, we drove to the Neist Lighthouse which had at least 8 miles of single track road. At the end of the road there is small amount of parking, and then a 15 minute paved walk to see the lighthouse - the walk would have been further to get all the way down to the lighthouse which we decided not to do. Note the walk is very steep in parts. Next we drove to see the Fairy Pools. We hiked about 20 minutes, but could have hiked further and saw even more pools. This hike was very busy.
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| Neist Point Lighthouse |
Fort William and Ben Nevis
We stayed at a wonderful bed and breakfast in Fort William called Treetops B&B. The breakfast was healthy including hard boiled eggs from their own chickens; the couple that own Treetops are friendly and helpful. Our first night we ate dinner at Crannog's in Fort William which is right on the water. It was stressed by our B & B hosts to make reservations for all of our dinners and definitely agree with that advice. We recommend Crannog's it has a great seafood menu. There is very little parking at Crannogs, but there is a car park just up the boulevard on the water and then a 5 minute walk to the restaurant.
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| View from Treetops Bed and Breakfast |
We originally planned to hike to top of Ben Nevis but we had a late start and everyone we asked on their way down said the top was foggy with no visibility. This is an enjoyable hike with a well-maintained trail. We were not able to go into the Ben Nevis Visitor Center because it was closed due to the Queen's funeral.
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| Hiking Ben Nevis |
We had reservations our second night at Ben Nevis Inn which is very close to the trailhead for the Ben Nevis hike. This is another great restaurant with a very casual but cozy atmosphere. On our last day in Fort William we went to the Highland Museum which was very nice and deserved more time than we had available. There is a nice pedestrian-only street with lots of shops and a nice visitor center as well.
Glen Etive Scenic Drive
After leaving Fort William, we drove south and picked up the scenic road that was used for filming the James Bond movie "Skyfall" as well as Outlander. This was a single track road but had beautiful scenery.
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| View from Glen Etive drive |
Conic Hill Hike / Loch Lomond
There is a large car park (takes coins only) and information center (50p for restrooms) at Conic Hill hike. This hike has great views of Loch Lomond and had some challenging scramble areas towards the top. It is about 2.5 miles and about 1000' elevation change. When you get to the first "scramble" area, we went to the right, and view was great.
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| View from the higher of two Conic Hill summits |
Glasgow
We drove to Glasgow for our last night in Scotland and stayed at the Moxy Merchant City. This is a nice hotel in a university area of the city, but parking lot is about 2 blocks away in an indoor ramp. It was inexpensive to park and felt secure. We had dinner at Babbity Bowser which is walking distance from the hotel.
The hotel included breakfast and was pretty good hot breakfast with good coffee. We walked to the Glasgow Cathedral in the morning, but it did not open until 10 so we could not go inside. We walked around the nearby necropolis instead. Next we drove to the Kelvingrove Museum which is free and very large. We did not have much time here as we had a long drive ahead of us. We walked to Glasgow University to see the cloisters (some Outlander filming happened here) but they were closed for a movie filming it appeared. The Glasgow University campus is a great place to visit. It is a very old university with lots of beautiful buildings.
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| Glasgow Cathedral |
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| Kelvingrove Museum |
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| Tolbooth Steeple downtown Glasgow |
Our next stop was Salisbury in England, a seven hour drive south. We checked into the Cricket Field House for the night. The room was okay and needs some updating, but the breakfast was decent the next morning. We had a delicious dinner at the French restaurant chain called Cote.
Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral
We started the day at Stonehenge and bought tickets in advance online for 9:30 am. We recommend arriving at Stonehenge visitor center when they open if you can. You will get to see the stones before it gets busy and it seems to get busy right away! You take a 5-10 minute shuttle bus out to the stones, and if you are on one of the earliest buses, there is no wait or line. We recommend you do the visitor center after viewing the stones so the line for the bus is shorter and there are less people at the stones. The visitor center is excellent and we did not allow enough time here and wish we had. Also, there are VIP tickets to get a closer look at the stones, either early in the day or at end of day, but these sell out several months in advance (book very early if this interests you).
We then took a tour scheduled to see the Salisbury Cathedral tower. This was a 2-hour in depth tour that was very interesting. However, the tour is only of the tower and did not include the lower parts of the cathedral which we were unable to see after the tour due to some school activity. Be sure not to miss the Cathedral Floor tour if available.
We parked at the Old George Mall Car Park which was cheaper than the Cathedral Car Park.
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| Salisbury Cathedral |
London
Before returning home, we spent 2 days in London. Places we saw:
- Kings Cross Station and St. Pancras and Track 9 3/4 (from Harry Potter)
- British Library (free) where we saw a copy of the Magna Carta and many other rare books
- Buckingham Palace
- Thames River boat tour - highly recommend
- Greenwich - Royal Observatory and the Prime Meridian line
- National Maritime Museum (free)
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| The river boat takes you very close to many sights and goes under the Tower Bridge |
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| The view from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich |
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| National Maritime Museum |
We recommend eating at the Duck and Waffle located on 40th floor with amazing views of London, though it is very pricey. We also ate at Masala Zone (in Camden) which had delicious Indian food.
General Recommendations
- Make sure you have pounds in coin form for the car parks
- Have some smaller cash for tipping when you arrive at airport (shuttle driver)
- Book as many things as possible in advance (restaurants, tours, etc.)
- An excellent guidebook is the Rick Steves Scotland (and Rick Steves England)
- Many restaurants do not include a line or opportunity for tipping your server; once you indicate you will pay with a credit card, they come to the table with a card reader and charge the amount of the bill with no chance to write in a top amount, or tap a percentage on the machine. If you want to leave a tip, just ask the server to add X pounds and they will happily do so.
- Make sure you have time to see the Scottish hairy cows:
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