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.
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