Scotland 2023: Final Thoughts

  • o Highlights: Town of Bakewell, York Minster, Beamish Open Air Museum, Durham Cathedral, Alnwick Castle (and The Cookie Jar hotel), The Royal Mile (including Holyroodhouse Palace and the restaurant La Locanda). The town of York would be worth another visit.
  • o Taking part in guided tours of places was definitely better than trying to do-it-ourselves.  I include the cobbled-together self-tour of the Royal Mile I built from a couple of sources as a guided tour.  
  • o We think our next trip is likely to involve fewer destinations. We did literally live out of our suitcases for the 1st week and that wasn’t great.
  • o Mixed feels about driving. It gives so much flexibility for trip planning, but introduces its own stresses.
  • o Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy was TOTALLY worth the extra costs. Those 21” wide seats and tons of legroom made flying quite pleasant. I think we’re too old now for anything less.
  • o Speaking of being old, we don’t adjust to timezone changes like we used to. We THOUGHT we had fully adjusted by the 3rd day, but we kinda regressed a bit and didn’t really adjust until about the 5th day. We never adjusted enough to have a serious appetite at breakfast time.
  • o Although we had anticipated sightseeing with the backpack, we actually never took it on the road. We carried our jackets when needed and a few purse-sized items. (The backpack was still a great item to have with us – the perfect airplane carry-on and better than a rolling carry-on.)
  • o We got lucky - Eileen didn't get Covid until 4 days AFTER we came home, although likely exposed to it on the trip.

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