Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: United Kingdom

The Castles and Cows of Stirling

Stirling is a super easy day trip from Edinburgh, and we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tour Stirling Castle on a gorgeous September day. Chris and I hopped on the train Thursday morning and found ourselves in Stirling in under an hour. With colorful storefronts along curvy streets and homes that look like gingerbread houses, I found the town to be completely charming.

I came across plenty of colorful doors for my photo collection.

After walking around the town a bit and having a fantastic lunch at the No. 2 Baker St. pub (I had the Belhaven Steak & Ale pie – so good!), we headed up the hill to the castle. It’s a bit of a walk, so we easily burned off those lunchtime calories.

Guided tours and audio tours were available of the 12th century castle, but we chose to wander the grounds at our own pace armed with a map. We loved lingering over the spectacular views.

We didn’t feel like we had enough time to get over to the Wallace Monument. It’s a couple of miles from Stirling Castle, so if you want to see both you need to plan for it time-wise. There’s a great view of it from the castle though, so Chris took this beautiful photo (on the right) with a telephoto lens. We’ll have to visit it another time since I had an additional mission planned for our time in Stirling (see below).

I want to be the person who went to Stirling strictly for the rich history, magnificent castle, and culturally important monument. However, I’m the person who went to Stirling in one last-ditch attempt to find a red Highland cow on this trip to Scotland! Okay, so we did have Stirling and the castle tour on our must-see list before I realized it was my final opportunity to see the hairy coos. I’m pretty sure I drove Chris nuts during our Islay weekend, craning my neck in the car to look for them. A photographer friend of mine who had recently been to Edinburgh also took a day trip to Stirling and said she saw cows there. I didn’t want to get my hopes up because I couldn’t imagine that we’d actually find them, but we did!

Two sweet babies trotted right over to us alongside a fence, and were just so curious about us with our cameras.

We even saw a blonde one! So with the black one that we found on Islay, plus these guys, my Highland cow obsession was quite satisfied. If only I was allowed to bring one home! (Don’t worry, I didn’t try. We really don’t have the space.)

November 23, 2015
Searching for Harry in Edinburgh: The Potter Trail Tour

As any Harry Potter fan would, I had already planned to visit The Elephant House during our time in Edinburgh, but when I came across reviews for the Potter Trail on TripAdvisor I knew we’d simply have to set aside some time to do this free 90-minute tour. We picked the 3pm tour on a Wednesday and we lucked out with a lovely day.

Our cloak-wearing guide, Richard, met the group at the Greyfriars Bobby statue, which I don’t know if I would have noticed if we hadn’t stopped there on purpose (it’s a sweet story). Richard handed out plastic wands to everyone in the group and taught us a spell to make the traffic lights turn green. We walked around the city for about 2.4 km/1.5 miles, and each time our group needed to cross a street, we gave a swish-and-flick of the wands. A little cheesy, but it made me giggle every time.

Richard’s energy and impressive knowledge of the books, movies, and of J. K. Rowling kept the group engaged and enthralled. My non-Potterhead husband didn’t feel bored, but he admits he liked the Harry Potter-inspired bar in Toronto better than the Potter Trail tour. That said, it’s a nice walk through different parts of Edinburgh and to pockets of the city you might not otherwise visit, so it’s fairly suitable for any non-fans.

Our group ranged in age from 20s – 30s. Richard was entertaining, but I don’t know if there’s enough to keep really young children interested for 90 minutes. The website suggests that if they’re old enough to read the books, they’re old enough for the tour.

Okay, so here’s a spoiler alert! If you don’t want the details of what we saw on the tour, please don’t read the rest of this post. I kind of liked being surprised at a few of the spots, but I know some people would want to know what areas are included on the tour, so I’m posting photos of most (not all) of the places where we stopped.

We started out at Greyfriars Kirkyard where we explored the cemetery to find grave markers that may have influenced a few characters’ names in the story. The cemetery itself is also thought to have inspired the graveyard scene in Goblet of Fire.

I don’t recall the exact order of our tour and your mileage may vary anyway depending on your tour guide, but other stops included a through-the-fence peek at a private school that Hogwarts might have been modeled after, potential namesake Potterow, one of the cafes (Spoon) in which Rowling penned parts of the first installment of Harry Potter, and a view of the Balmoral Hotel where she finished the last.

And of course we stopped at the other cafe in which Jo spent time writing: The Elephant House. On the tour we learned that while The Elephant House holds the spotlight and a sign in the window for being the “birthplace of Harry Potter,” that’s not exactly true since the cafe opened after the first manuscript was already well under way. But Rowling did spend time writing here, and it’s a great little cafe to pop in for lunch or tea (if you don’t mind waiting in a long queue of Harry Potter fans).

The tour didn’t stop there for long, so Chris and I returned on our own for a pastry and to take photos of the graffitied restroom. We sat at the table in the back with a view of Edinburgh Castle, and felt the presence of J.K.R.’s magic.

We ended our tour at the top of Victoria Street which may have inspired Diagon Alley.

My final thoughts? I loved this tour! I ate up all of Richard’s silly humor, and I admit I enjoyed waving a plastic magic wand at the traffic lights. It was good fun to hang out with fellow HP fans, I learned quite a few new Rowling fun-facts, and I loved the occasional trivia questions Richard quizzed us with throughout the tour. On the O.W.L. grade scale, I’d give this tour an E for Exceeds Expectations!

Can’t make it out to Edinburgh any time soon? For more inspiration, the book Harry Potter: Magical Places from the Films: Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and Beyond and the Harry Potter Places book series have a ton of ideas on where to find other Harry Potter-related sites around the world. I’m so excited that there are several other places I still need to visit (the Glenfinnan viaduct in Scotland is hanging out at the top of my wish list). Let me know if you come up with your own tour ideas!

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November 16, 2015
Photo Friday – The National Monument of Scotland

I photographed the National Monument of Scotland on Calton Hill on our last day in Edinburgh. The monument memorializes the Scottish soldiers who lost their lives while fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. I managed to get myself up and out of bed early enough to hike up to the hill and catch this beautiful golden morning glow back-lighting the monument. That kind of light was certainly worth an early morning!

November 13, 2015
Falling in Love with Edinburgh

I’ve admitted before that I’m not generally a fan of big cities. I get anxious and overwhelmed in crowds, and I tend to prefer a more tranquil environment. Edinburgh though, full of charm and history, is a big city that I could fall in love with pretty easily. Chris and I spent four days in Scotland’s capital and second largest city, and I can definitely say I would be thrilled to visit this big city again someday. Armed with comfortable shoes and personalized recommendations from my brother who used to live in Edinburgh, we covered as much ground as we could in our short stay.

Our Airbnb flat put us only a few steps from High Street, so we covered the Royal Mile from end-to-end. We wandered the side streets and popped in and out of touristy little shops. And thank goodness for all of that walking, because we also ate our way up and down the streets of Old Town, including a fried Mars bar (which was disappointingly not as good as it sounded).

In addition to the fantastic weather we had during our week in Ireland, the weather continued to hold up while we gallivanted around Scotland, too. After all of the effort I put into searching for the perfect rain jacket for Ireland and Scotland, I never really needed it save for one chilly afternoon in Northern Ireland! We had clouds on the first day in Edinburgh, and then it was sunny blue skies and even a little on the warm side for the rest of our visit. So the lesson here is that if you want great weather in Ireland and the UK, spend a good bit of time and money on a rain jacket search.

There are plenty of places to duck in though if you aren’t so lucky with the weather: the Scottish National Gallery, the National Museum of Scotland, or maybe one of the underground ghost tours. If you’re interested in cathedrals, St. Giles’ Cathedral is breathtaking inside (and photography is allowed in exchange for a small donation).

We didn’t tour Edinburgh Castle or Holyrood Palace because of the crowds while we were there, but it was enough for me just to see the beautiful architecture from the outside. I’ve put both tours on the list for next time. And speaking of crowds, now that I’ve seen what Edinburgh looks like on a typical day, I would actually be willing to go back during Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts festival that fills the streets with over two million attendees. (My brother attended and loved it, and I think he was disappointed that I purposely avoided it this trip.)

With only a limited amount of time in the city and a long to-do list including a day trip to Stirling, I knew we needed to choose our tours carefully. We decided on The Real Mary King’s Close tour for a dose of history and we enjoyed it. Unfortunately, photography wasn’t allowed on the tour (one of my least favorite things to hear), but I highly recommend it for a fascinating and slightly creepy look into Edinburgh’s hidden streets and underground world. After returning home with one of the worst colds I’ve ever had, I couldn’t help but wonder if being in a dank room on the tour where people actually died from the pneumonic plague was the culprit. But I can assure you, as I’m writing this post two months later I have fully recovered.

My most favorite areas of Old Town were beyond the Royal Mile. We loved exploring Victoria Street and the Grassmarket area, and we hung out at Sandy Bell’s one night for a traditional folk music session. A Harry Potter-inspired tour of Edinburgh also took us through some of the southside area, but more on that in an upcoming post.

We didn’t spend a ton of time on Princes Street, but we did go visit the gardens and took a pricey-but-fun spin on the ferris wheel. And I grinned goofily over this bagpipe player more than I care to admit.

On our last morning in Edinburgh, I took an early stroll up Calton Hill for some fantastic views of the city. Poor Chris came down with a bad cold the last few days of our trip (the one I caught once we returned home) so he stayed behind.

One of my most favorite moments in Edinburgh happened there while sitting on a park bench behind the Nelson Monument. I had the hill all to myself for a good ten minutes before any other tourists showed up. I ate my banana in the quiet and watched the sunlight slowly wash over the buildings. Having a quiet space to myself, even for just a short time, gave me that tranquil feeling I often crave and it was nice to know I can find peace even in a bustling city. And a bonus, I’m pretty sure I worked off that fried Mars bar with the hike up and back.

So there you have it, the city that just might have changed my mind about big cities! I’m ready to take on a few more next year as we head back to Europe. We’re even planning to attend a couple of festivals!

November 11, 2015
Catching Some Zzzs at My First Airbnb
Chris and I are no strangers to the sharing economy when it comes to traveling. We’ve utilized HomeAway, VRBO, and FlipKey many times for vacation rentals, but up until our trip to Scotland I had yet to use Airbnb as a resource. We decided to give it a go when our hotel research in Edinburgh returned pricey results. I scoured the Airbnb site to come up with a well-reviewed one-bedroom flat in the perfect location for a very reasonable rate.

Lined with tons of stores and pubs, and situated steps away from both High Street and the train station, Cockburn Street was the perfect place to base ourselves for four days. (Thankfully my brother who lived in Scotland for several years let me know that it’s pronounced “CO-burn” Street and not, well, phonetically.) We could not have picked a better spot.

Our host met us at the flat to give us the keys and go over the usual stuff. Everything looked just as it did in the pictures online and we loved the space. We always enjoy feeling more like a local, and popping in and out of our flat in the city certainly made us feel like we called Edinburgh home. As an added bonus, the pub downstairs carried an extensive beer menu and served a fantastic bangers & mash. What more could we need? (Well, maybe better instructions for the washer/dryer combo, but we figured it out eventually.)

We had such good success with our Airbnb in Edinburgh that we decided to use the site again to find a flat for a long weekend in Toronto. After a bit of research I landed on this new, modern-but-cozy condo on George Street, just steps away from some of the major attractions in the city. We were able to walk to shops, restaurants, and the Hockey Hall of Fame, but the location was quiet enough that we could get some much needed sleep.

At this point we are two for two in the Airbnb luck department, so we’re giving it another try for an upcoming trip next year: Brussels and Amsterdam! We’ll continue to use our favorite sites as well especially for island trips, but I’ll definitely keep Airbnb in my arsenal of travel tools. It seems to be a great resource for finding city rentals in a range of prices.

Do you Airbnb? If so, let me know about your experiences! If you haven’t given the site a try yet, here are a few general tips:
1. Be sure to indicate your preferred Room Type in your Airbnb search. For example, check “Entire Home” in your search if you’re not interested in a shared space. You also have the option of a private room (i.e., your own private room for sleeping, but you may share some common areas with the host, like the kitchen or living room) or a shared space (i.e., you do not have a private room for sleeping; crashing on a host’s living room couch, for example).
2. Get an idea of the going rate for the surrounding area. If most Entire Home rentals in a city center are going for $300, but you find an entire home with amazing photos and a perfect description in the city center going for $50, it might be too good to be true. Do your research.
3. Look for additional information in the reviews. The description of our Edinburgh flat didn’t state that it was located above a pub, but one of the reviews mentioned it and it concerned me a bit, knowing my light sleeper tendencies. The majority of the reviews indicated that the flat was in a quiet location so we took a chance (and it worked out fine), but it was nice to know what to expect.
4. Communicate with your host before you book. If you have any questions, they should be willing to respond. Their response time and the thought they put into their answers will probably give you an idea of what kind of host they’ll be for your stay.
And if you want to snag $20 off of your first Airbnb stay, click here! Happy and safe travels!
November 9, 2015