Chronicle of a trip to Scotland

For those inquiring about our most recent trip to Scotland, here is a summary of the whole trip. If you just want to know the kinds of things we did, without details, I have first listed places visited, by date. Following that, there's a full accounting of our trip, with (nearly) all the gritty details. (If you want details on certain things, look for the date and find the write-up, or look at the photos included with the descriptions, but skip the text.)

This trip has been in the planning for nearly two years. We had wanted to get Wayne's parents to Scotland, because they'd never seen it and seemed very interested. We thought it would be fun to show them a lot of our favorite places, and hopefully to also discover a few new ones. We succeeded with this, I think - we took them from Edinburgh to the Hebrides (including our favorite place, Lewis/Harris), and also took in new places like Mull and Iona along the way. It was a wonderful trip. Here's a brief recap of what we did:

3/29-30 home, Glasgow, Edinburgh

Departed BWI on Icelandair, changing planes in Reykjavik, Iceland. Arrived in Glasgow.

Glasgow (St. Mungo's) Cathedral

drive to Edinburgh

3/31 Edinburgh Royal Mile Edinburgh Castle Outside of St. Giles' Cathedral

4/1 Edinburgh Holyrood Palace St. Giles' Cathedral Roslyn Chapel (too late to get in) dinner with our friend Heather Yule

4/2 Edinburgh, Stirling, Spean Bridge

Craigmillar Castle

Stirling Castle

Doune Castle

Glencoe

4/3 Spean Bridge, Skye

Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness

Eilean Donan Castle

drive to Portree, on the Isle of Skye

4/4 Skye Dunvegan Castle Trumpan Church 4/5 Skye, Harris Museum of Island Life Fairy Glen Ferry to Harris Rodel - St. Clement's Church West Coast road/beaches

4/6 Harris, Lewis Pairc Monument Callanish and related sites Dun Carloway - Iron age Broch Whalebone Arch Clach an Truiseil

4/7 Lewis Butt of Lewis Dun Eistein (ruins of the Clan Morrison castle) St. Moluag's Church (closed) Stornoway park Uprising Monuments in Eye and Gress Tea with Justin and Laura (more friends) 4/8 Lewis, Harris, Skye Harris Ferry drove around the Trotternish peninsula Duntulm Castle Kilt Rock Broadford (for laundry)

4/9 Skye, Moidart, Mull Mallaig ferry from Skye to "mainland" drives through scenery Prince Charlie monument Ferry to Fishnish, Mull Tobermory

4/10 Mull, Iona Aros Castle Craignure - looked at Torosay Castle from outside drove Carsaig road - couldn't see arches Ferry to Iona Iona Abbey Wayne and Jo attended 11:30 pm Easter service and waded in Atlantic

4/11 Iona Easter service at Abbey (beginning in cemetery) boat trip to Staffa – Fingal's cave and puffins elegant dinner at Columba Hotel Wayne and Jo attended PM service at Abbey 4/12 Iona, Mull, Oban Iona Nunnery Ferry back to Mull Duart Castle Ferry to Oban View from Pulpit Hill

4/13 Oban, Kilmartin

Kilmartin valley:

Kilmartin museum

ancient crosses and graveslabs at Kilmartin Church

Carnasserie Castle (viewed from great distance)

Ballymeanoch standing stones and kerb cairn

Dunadd

carved stones at Achnabreck

Kilmichael carvings

Temple Woods Stone circle

Nether Largie South Cairn

4/14 Oban, Glasgow Dunstaffnage castle and chapel drive to Glasgow Dumbarton castle

4/15 Glasgow, home

fly home from Glasgow, through Reykjavik