Scotland!

My family was able to embark on an amazing trip to England and Scotland this summer.  We had a great window of opportunity: T between HS graduation and college, Scott between college grad and med school, and Matt between dental school and residency. Sadly, Jane wasn't able to come, as her highly anticipated internship at Goldman Sachs started the day we left.  My mom's mom, Sandi, joined the party and we had a wonderful time!

Here's the very abbreviated recap of our trip:

2 days in London= A very quick taste of the history and culture!  The complexity and richness of British history is fascinating.  Highlights= delicious Fish & Chips after a day of travel and semi-successfully navigating through torrential downpours, the beautiful National Portrait Gallery, the rich-in-history Tower of London with a wonderful Yeoman Warder tour guide, surveying the layout of the city from the Eye of London, and (our favorite!) absorbing the beauty and history of Westminster Abbey.

Also very fun, Matt's parents completed their land/boat cruise of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Normandy and arrived in Heathrow right before we left London.  Matt and I met them at their hotel and were able to learn tips about many of the sites and enjoy seeing them, in England!

We rented cars for the remainder of our trip, with my Dad and Matt driving stick-shift on the left side of the road, from the left side of the car.  They did great!  Navigating all the complex traffic circles kept us on our toes, but I think Matt and Dad loved owning those beautiful, curvy roads.

En route to Scotland, we stopped in Oxford to walk around the town and visit Christ Church.  Beautiful, historical, fun college town!

We LOVED our "home base" for the week: Pitlochry.  It is gorgeous.  At the base of the Highlands, with rolling green hills and uniform stone buildings.  It's a charming tourist and retirement town.  The small main street was full of restaurants and shops, and we fully enjoyed our week based there!

We rented a house for the week, which was the way to go with a group of 8.  We did a lot of meals at home, and we loved the area so much that we used three of our days just to hike the Highlands and soak up the charm of Pitlochry.

Highlights from Pitlochry: Hikes (the first hike we accidentally meandered off the path and ended up ducking and climbing our way through this enchanted mossy woodland, gorgeous and eventually dangerous- cliffs, Matt with John in a pack carrier on his back breaking branches to create a path...  We eventually made our way back to the real path and a beautiful waterfall!), Golf (the boys' tee time) overlooking the stunning green valley, and Afternoon Tea (the girls' tea time, complete with amazing herbal teas, sandwiches, scones, and pastry treats).

Two additional family highlights while in Pitlochry: The Colton Men Beard Competition, with a fully documented shaving in successive beard stages (lambchops and goatee, goatee, fu man chu with spit catcher, mustache, clean).  The boys sure had fun being scraggly Scots for the week, the beard stages were hilarious and horrifying, and the awards at the end were really fun.

We also celebrated John's birthday in the Pitlochry house, as I previously posted.  A very fun Scottish birthday!

We ventured out of the Highlands every other day, visiting a wide variety of Scottish sites.
1) Isle of Skye= AMAZING.  Some of the most picturesque, wild, remote land I can imagine.  We loved the long drive over (well, my stomach didn't care for that many turns, but it was gorgeous!), passing beautiful lochs and mountains, and the Isle was other-worldly.

We did a boat tour to an even more remote portion of the island, complete with wild seals, birds, jagged mountains, and a breath-taking lake.

On the way home, we stopped by Eilean Donan castle and Urquhart castle (on Loch Ness).  No tours, just wandering and enjoying the views!

2) Edinburgh= historical and charming.  Scotland's history is filled with ruins, with competing clans and England periodically wiping out leaders and buildings.  Edinburgh reflects this history, with many significant old buildings gone or in ruins, but still contains many beautiful and historical gems.

Favorites: A) St. Margaret's chapel in Edinburgh castle.  St. Margaret is one of the earliest cannonized Scottish saints, married to Malcolm Canmore, who killed MacBeth (who had killed his father, Duncan).    A beautiful little chapel which captures an interesting phase of history from 1,000 years ago!

B) Arthur's Seat.  A hike beyond Holyrood Castle which provides gorgeous views of the city and bay beyond the city.

3) Also fun, we unintentionally ended up following the Olympic torch route!  We drove through Inverness shortly after the torch left that city, visited Edinburgh the day the torch went through, and flew out of Glasgow the day after the torch left there.  It was fun to feel the excitement for the upcoming games!

3) Sterling= rooted in the "fun" ancient history!  I love the older history of Scotland, from William Wallace and Robert the Bruce to Mary Queen of Scots.  Sterling was at the center of so many significant events during that time period, and the museum there outlines Sterling's involvement beautifully.

I loved seeing the Robert the Bruce monument, overlooking the Bannockburn field where his against-the-odds victory allowed for the unification of Scotland.  Great book: Robert the Bruce (trilogy). After reading that, I couldn't get enough of the fields and simple little monument!

We also saw Blair Atholl, a charming whitewashed castle near Pitlochry with beautiful grounds, and Glasgow, which is a big, industrial city with an international airport... One highlight from Glasgow: seeing St. Mungo's tomb in the Glasgow Cathedral.  A lovely church attendant caved in when I asked her what the tomb looked like, and she snuck Brittany and I down to see the quilt-covered tomb.  She repeatedly warned us she could be shot for allowing us down there, but recognized that viewing this tomb surely would make our trip to Glasgow worth it.  St. Mungo is a highly revered saint from the Scottish Christian church (true christianity), and she was beaming with pride while overlooking his tomb.  Brittany and I dished out the respect and awe and thoroughly enjoyed our sneaky tour.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip!  We had a great time together, saw many truly gorgeous vistas and buildings, learned about two fascinating countries, and left very satisfied about soaking up the culture and geography of Scotland.  John was wonderful, sleeping on the go, enjoying the family attention, and providing endless entertainment for us.

A million thank you's to my parents for pulling off such a memorable trip!
For more pictures and details, here's our web album.