Wife wants to go to Scotland and do the castle tourist thing...and neither of us know anything about Scotland. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated!

My wife has family in Scotland and I have family in England. We have going to the UK about every 4 years since 1999.

In short go! You will have a wonderful time.

Edinburgh is a wonderful town with a very cool castle http://www.edinburghcastle.gov.uk/ there a lot of cool things to do in Edinburgh. A real must do.

Another favorite is the Castle of Mey on the north shore www.castleofmey.org.uk this was one of the Queen Mother's residences and is newer but quite lovely. The queen mom was a very cool lady.

Hadrian's wall in the south of Scotland is well worth seeing as well. Especially the Roman Army Museum and Vindolanda
http://www.vindolanda.com/

Fort William, The Isle of Skye, Glencoe, Inverness, the Orkney Islands are all very cool too. The Orkney's have a very outstanding amount of neolithic history. They have a ring of standing stones The Ring of Brodgar http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/brodgar/ which is a park your car and walk up place. No fees, no line ups, no fences, no crowds.

How long are planning on being there?

Do you and your wife like to hike?

Are you going to rent a car and drive?

Is there any aspect of Scottish history you are interested in? There are some very cool castles in ruins or semi ruins which are really cool to see and in some cases are just a matter of park and walk up and explore.

Read up on your history of Scotland before you go. We have found that a relatively informed question politely phrased will get you into some very interesting paces. Several times we have been invited past the "private no admittance" chains because of such a question.

Do you like Scotch Whiskey?

Let me know what you are thinking and I will get a little less random in my comments. If I don't respond quickly enough to your responding post pleas feel free to PM me and put a boot up my backside.

Best regards
GRF

^This^

My wife & I went to Scotland & Ireland a few years ago, had a great time. Started out in the Borders region (Hadrians Wall), moved on to Edinburgh, then Stirling, Inverness, Culloden, Dornoch, etc till we ran out of time. We didn't rent a car, we bought Britrail passes and took the trains and buses.

http://www.britrail.net/passes

We made a list of places we wanted to see, took a Lonely Planet guidebook and headed off. Here are a few random thoughts:

Expect to be amazed, it is like no place I know of on this side of the Atlantic.

You don't need a tour, go on your own.

Travel light, we went two weeks on one bag each.

Figure on walking a lot, wear appropriate shoes.

People were very friendly and we almost speak the same language.

When in Edinburgh make sure to rub Greyfriars Bobby's head.

You must try Caledonian 80 shilling ale.

You must try haggis. You'll probably hate it, but you must try it.

You don't generally need reservations, there are B&B's everywhere. The exception would be during the really touristy times like Edinburgh's Festival in August.

If you go in summer, expect very long days, you are a lot further north than anywhere in the lower 48.

Expect to get rained on, expect it to be colder than NC.

Be ready to get off when the train stops (they don't stop for long).

+1

Several years ago, a married couple I know took a "whisky tour" and saw much of Scotland that way. He liked Scotch, but she didn't drink at all -- BOTH had a great time.

Apparently there many companies which offer these tours, and some (all?) are subsidized by the distilleries because they want to get lifelong customers.

Well, apparently there were a number of non-drinkers on several of the tours and who just enjoyed the beautiful countryside, the friendly guides -- and all of it partially subsidized apparently.

I just fired up a search engine, and here are a couple of links.

Guided Tours (not just disilleries either)

and

Real whiskey tours
According to my non-drinker friend, this was still a really nice way to see much of Scotland!

Oh, and don't be afeared of the haggis -- I had some very good haggis when I was in Scotland! It was made by the guy who won the "best haggis in Scotland" competition that year.

On the other hand, I'd suggest staying away from the current pride of Scottish cuisine though (sorry kamo_gari!) -- the deep-fried Mars bar. :0

John

Go!

http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rburns/bl-rburns-myhearthigh.htm

Go, it is great.
Wife & I went a few years ago
Started a tour in Glasgow. Tour took us around the country and ended in Edinburg.
Castles, distilleries, Loch's, Balmoral.
We took a side trip on our own to Rosland Chapel.
It was a great tour of a beautiful country.
Nice people, good (interesting)food.
Oh yeah, some gun shops too.

If you go........

1 - don't argue with any of them, you wont win

2 - don't let any of them throw anything at you, it hurts like hell

My wife is from there.

Going on two years ago I went over and hunted in S/W Scotland with another campfire member from there. Didn't get to see as much of Scotland as I would have liked, but loved every minute of it.

Took a Roe deer & Stag and later on got to see a good part of England and other than the hunting probably my favorite part was touring some Castles in Wales.

and watch the news.... next week they are holding an election to vote on independence from the UK...

Poole

Can't imagine going there & not doing at least a little hunting. World class bird hunting also Sika, Red, Roe, Fallow deer, rabbits, & waterfowl.

All of Scotland is great. As others have mentioned, Edinburgh Castle is great. So is Stirling Castle, about 30 miles to the NW. I did a lot of hiking in the Rannoch Moor/Glencoe/Ft William area. Perth is also a nice small town.
I met my wife there(she was from LA). She was on the same guided hiking tour as me. She could hike 10-12 miles a day, up and down the hills, when it was cold and windy and rainy and still keep a sunny disposition...I had to marry her. I don't know why she married me...

I went to Stirling in 2009 and found my GGGgrandfathers headstone next to the castle in the Church of the Rood cemetery. I really want to get back there. kwg

I love Edinburgh and stirling castle too. My mother in law is burried at the Stirling Castle grave yard. I remember several Canadians from a ww1 logging battalion are burried their too fromm about 1915 or so.
The independence party is npretty anti gun and anti hunting thought Scotts are world class poachers, go figure.

Here's what I suggest you do - (I spent many years traveling in Scotland - Wales and Ireland) Start in Glasgow, hire a car and and GPS.

Head for the A82 follow it towards Loch Lomond continue around towards Crainlairich - stay on the A82 towards Glencoe pass through Glencoe and head towards Fort William (this some of the finest scenery in the whole of Scotland)

You can either go off to Skye (if you have a spare day or two) once you leave Fort William (A87) or stay on A82 towards Inverness. Passing Loch Ness on your right stay over in Inverness and soak it all up - now you must decide if you want to continue Northwards to John o Grotes or go along the A96 via Elgin, Aberdeen and back towards Edinburgh.

Apart from the scenary, there is whiskey, salmon fishing, Golf and many other things to think about - plan your trip well and you will have a great time, if you are like me you will end up going back a number of times to try and see it all.

Give me a shout if you need any more help

Rannoch moor!!!

Memories

Thanks UPhiker

Absolutely go, you won't regret it.

My suggestion is to decide what region you wish to tour and go from there. We spent nearly two weeks driving at our own pace, not hooked to a guided tour.

Edinburgh, Sterling, Dunvegan, Eilean Donan (the most photographed castle in Scotland), Blair, etc. are worth a visit.

Mac84: how much difficulty did you have adjusting to driving on the "wrong" side of the road?

Not Mac84 but the driving on the left side of the road right side of the car was a pretty easy transition.

The company I worked for had an office in Aberdeen so I got to go over for a bit. Brought my wife with and we toured around for a bit. Rented a car (note: hard to find an automatic there) and tooled around. Favourite castle was Dunnotar. Fav small town was Pitlochery. Edradour distillery is close to there. Smallest in Scotland apparently. Good tour. We enjoyed Perth as well. Edinburgh was too touristy for us though.

SS

Bumped a few curves the first couple minutes but it was easy to catch on. Won't be an issue.

Pitlochry is a beautiful town. The damn and fish ladder was neat to see. I enjoyed Edradour as well. Love the whiskey.

I'm glad that I wasn't the only one! I had no problems in the countryside or small towns but I wouldn't have ventured into Edinburgh/Glasgow since decisions have to be made so much faster. Roundabouts were no problem at all.

The first time on the wrong side of the road everyone bumps a curb whether they admit or not.

Driving in Glasgow was very intense and required full concentration. As do the busy motorways around London.

To me, more importantly, remembering which direction to look first when stepping off the curb was paramount!

Kaywoodie on our first trip I would not let me wife cross the road until I told her to. Two near misses with a cab in Edinburgh brought that into affect.

Wife and in-laws have been a number of times in last handful of years, all were done differently. Used Go Ahead Tours, used time-share (no tour), used CIE Tours, and last trip was on an Episcopal church retreat.

The time-share was a self planned, go where you want, do what you want trip. Planning travel routes and driving yourself along tiny narrow roads is an eye opener. The CIE Tours was with a small group and was well liked. Having someone else drive you around is a plus, and the CIE tour allows ample free time to break from the group and see things you'd like. The retreat was not a tour, but was fixed at one location.

My wife really liked the trip through CIE Tours. She covered all the bases through CIE and enjoyed that trip. That tour group started the trip in Glasgow, and the biggest issue for my wife was the time change and jet lag. If done over again, she would have preferred to arrange her arrival a day ahead of the group to have more time to adjust and look around. A veteran traveler to Scotland within the tour group did just that and it worked well for that person. They coordinated to arrive a day ahead of the tour, got their own lift to the hotel, and had a full day at the hotel ahead of the group.

Hope this helps

kaywoodie: I understand that...when the airline I flew for first started flying to London, a friend for got that on his first trip....stepped off curb and went flying through the air...he spent quite a time with a cast on his leg...the rest of us learned from his mistake. When we did Dublin I had to hold my wife's hand each and every crossing to make sure she did not follow in his footsteps.

Thanks for all the replies guys! Keep any ideas coming! We appreciate them.