The UK Part II

Our time in the UK is up.  We are driving our car onto the train tomorrow in Folkestone and arrive in France where we begin the next chapter of this amazing odyssey.

We’ve seen some absolutely beautiful scenery during these past 10 days having covered the Wester Ross region of Scotland, Trossachs National Park, The Lake District, Snowdonia National Park and Brecon Beacons National Park.  That’s a lot of scenery!  Here’s the path we took through all these spectacular places.

But before we get into what we saw, a word about the weather.  We’re sure everyone has heard about the record-breaking heat wave that has had the whole of the UK in its grip.  Well, we didn’t see any of it.  On our way north in The UK - Part I we were ahead of it and on our way south during Part II we seemed to get behind it.  So, whilst (we are in England, ya know) the majority of the people in the realm were experiencing 90-100+ temperatures, we never got above 70.  And, while we have had some sunshine and a few days of short sleeves, the majority of the time we had to don jackets.

Anyway, on to how we’ve been spending our time these last few days.

Our first stop was Shieldaig peninsula via the Wester Ross Coastal Trail.  This area is beautiful.  Wild open moors, mountains, gorges and rugged coastline.  It truly has it all.

We stayed in a 19th Century Hunting Lodge overlooking the coast.  And, with no wi-fi or cell service in any of rooms (they called it device detox) we really did feel like we had stepped back in time.

From Shieldaig we drove on to the Isle of Skye.  Here our lodging was in a charming small hotel on the eastern shore, again overlooking the water.  

The tides really come and go in this part of the world.  Here's the same lighthouse at low tide . . . 

and at high tide . . . . 

While we drove over a bridge to get onto the island, we took a ferry to get off and continued on to Trossachs National Park.  

The drive here, again, just gorgeous.  Loch Lomond stretches down the middle of this Park and on one of our outings we took a a very different ferry 

to a small island that we tromped around on for a couple of hours.  

It actually has quite a bit of history (Rob Roy’s cousin is buried there).

Next stop was back in England in The Lake District.  Again, gorgeous (is this getting monotonous?).  Here we branched out a bit and did some “poodling” on the water as opposed to the road.  Not great weather but it was lovely seeing everything from lake level. 

We also were able to get in a couple of walks between light rain showers. 

And during one of our drives we stopped in Grasmere, home to William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter, but more importantly home to Grasmere Gingerbread.  OMG!  We can’t begin to describe how delicious this stuff is.

After a couple of days exploring The Lake District we were off to Wales.  Our route took us to a 20 mile stretch of road that is actually used by EVO magazine (all about fast cars) as a “test track”.  It seems a lot of people have figured this out (like us) and on the 20 miles there were 8 very large speed check areas set up (we guess all the sheep, cows and farmers really aren't that keen on fast cars).  So, no vroom, vrooming but, boy, would it have been fun to have those Porsches.  

Our first stop in Wales was Betws-y-Coed (and believe me it doesn’t sound anything like it’s spelled).  Welsh is a very interesting language.  As an example here is a sign for one of the towns we went through.  

And, that’s the shortened version.  The entire name is . . . 

                          . . . . .Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch!       Say, what?

Betws-y-Coed is in Snowdonia - can we say Gorgeous one more time?  Unbelievable.  

The only bad thing was that the rain finally caught up to us so unfortunately no hikes.  We did, however, take a beautiful drive (there are more castles in Wales than anyplace else in the UK).  The most famous that we visited is Conwy Castle, built by Edward I in 1283-1287.  Very impressive, indeed.

And, our luck with the weather held as that morning was the only blue sky we had the entire time. 

Our last stop before heading back to the Continent was Brecon Beacons State Park.  One night in Hay-on-Wye, known for its Hay Castle

(in which Denise captured her inner Princess-ness).

And its many, many bookstores (one of which is the oldest second-hand bookstore in the world (and the original Owner lived in Hay Castle and crowned himself King of Hay).

We spent last night in Llandeilo.  More castles (we told you there were a lot of castles) and beautiful scenery.

It truly has been a great three weeks but we are anxious to get back on the Continent and take in the sights of France, Spain and Portugal.  So, it's off to the Chunnel one more time.

See you soon.

The UK - Part I

 We’ve arrived!  

Taking our car through the Chunnel on the train was so slick!  35 minutes and we’re in England.

After an overnight in Folkestone we had two nights in the Cotswolds.  This really is a magical part of England.  Charming villages with meandering streams, honey-colored stone buildings. . . . .

single track lanes on which to poodle around in our car and more walking trails for daily rambles than you can imagine.  

In addition to the above, we made a pilgrimage to Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddley Squat Farm Stand.  For those of you who are car nuts, like we are, you will be familiar with Jeremy.  For those who aren’t, he and two other blokes had a show called Top Gear on the BBC.  And now he has one called Clarkson’s Farm (on Amazon Prime) and that farm happens to be in the Cotswolds.  Hence, Diddley Squat Farm Stand.  It really was a hoot.

We then had what I thought was just going to be a “night on the road” as we made our way to Scotland.  But, it turned out that our hotel, the New Lanark Mill Hotel, was a World Heritage Site and was not only a great place to stay but it was in an absolutely beautiful setting.  Gotta love these serendipitous travel moments.

Our next stop was in Cairngorm National Park.  We had a week here to enjoy this beautiful part of the world.  One of the highlights was . . . . . we became Munro Baggers!  A Munro is the Scottish name for a mountain over 914 metres (3,000 feet) and there are 282 in Scotland.  If you reach the summit of a Munro you become a Bagger.  We hiked to the top of Cairn Gorm (1,245 meters or 4,084 feet - 2nd highest mountain in the Cairngorms) so . . . . .

In addition to climbing a Munro, we took a couple of great hikes, Jeff and Denise did a mountain bike ride and we took a steam engine train ride as a different way to see some of the great scenery.  

One of the best hikes we took was to the Ardvirikie Estate on Loch Laggan.  This beautiful estate is the setting for a BBC series called Monarch of the Glen.   It also provides a lot of settings for the Outlander series (it does have over 40,000 acres).  And, the Loch has the largest inland beach in all of Europe.  It was a glorious day.

Jeff and Denise also decided to take the train into Edinburgh for the day to check out the castle.

Our last day we drove the Snow Roads route through the Park.  Pictures can't capture the vastness of the Cairngorms.  The expansive moors, the majestic mountains . . . it must be experienced in person.  We can see why people come back year after year.  So, no pictures.  

But, we did stop for a visit with Denise’s new best friend (sorry, German cows), the Highland Coo, 

before ending up at the Center of Scotland.  What a great way to say “Mar Sin Leat” to this beautiful part of Scotland.

Stay tuned for The UK, Part II.  See you soon. 

PS.  I forgot to include the map showing our route in the last blog.  So, here is the third leg (Garmish and Beyond) 

and the forth leg (this one) to show you the roads traveled to date.