We arrived in Edinburg, Scotland for a 7-day vacation.
The trip includes lodging and a car for the seven days. The original itinerary
that was proposed by the tour company was a clock wise loop, arriving in Glasgow
and departing from Edinburgh. We were able to have it changed to a counter
clock wise loop starting in Edinburgh and finishing in Glasgow. The reason for
this change was that Jacques wanted to make sure that we had time to visit the
St. Andrews golf course on the second day instead of waiting for the last day and
taking the risk that we would run out of time.
When we arrived at the airport, we went to pick our
rental and did the usual walk-around the car to check for any bumps and
scratches. We noticed a few scratches, so we went back to the office to tell
the agent. He pulled out an 11-1/2 by 8 in. piece of paper with a large circle
printer on it and asked "is it bigger than this circle". When we
answer no, then he said that we were good to go.
Driving from the airport to our first night’s
accommodations proved to be an interesting drive given that fact we were driving
on the left side of the road. We made it fairly easily and decided to park the
car for the day and take the bus downtown. Before taking the bus, we checked
around to see where we could go for supper once we returned from our
sightseeing and found a pub a few doors down from our apartment so with that
taken care of, we waited for the bus and reached down-town Edinburgh a short
time later.
We climbed to the top of the Scott Monument (all 287 steps). It got so narrow at the top that we had to take off our backpacks in order to fit in the stairwell for the last few steps.
We also took a walking tour with Viatour to explore the underground vaults. The vaults were completed in 1788 and were located under the south bridge. In 1985, during excavation work it was discovered that people had lived in these vaults in the past.
We also visited a number of stores selling scotch but did not buy any since they were a lot more expensive than expected. It turns out that in Scotland, the government adds a local sales tax on top of the regular tax. The same scotch can be purchased in Europe for less money.
