Road trips, mountain walks and holidays

Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland Edinburgh definitely is one of the most special places, at least for me personally. Not only because we have been living there for several years. Although Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, it is only the second largest city in Scotland, the largest being Glasgow. It is home to just over half a million people, although in summer the city’s population can even double during the touristic season. The city hosts many different festivals throughout the summer, so tourists from all over the world come there to see those and even participate. In addition, Edinburgh’s Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Getting there The Scots have done their best to make it easy to get to the city. At Edinburgh Airport, a variety of airlines live together in a friendly way. Prior to the pandemic, the airport handled almost 15 million passengers a year. For example, Riga, which is a city of similar size, accommodated only half of it (7.8 million passengers). Getting...

Late in May we went to relax for a weekend, the destination – SPA hotel in Buckinghamshire, England. Hotel name Crowne Plaza Marlow . For those who have been to SPA hotels in countries such as Latvia, Estonia , the Czech Republic or Hungary, a Spa hotel in England may seem different from what they use to imagine  about this kind of establishment, although overall things are not that bad. About Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire is a county in the south-east of England, but to make it clearer, it is located to the west from London. It borders Greater London to the south-east, Oxfordshire to the west and a few other counties in other directions. Because London is relatively close by, many people who work in London live in Buckinghamshire, making the region quite expensive to live in. In total, the county is home to just over 800,000 people and covers an area of less than 2,000 square kilometres. Buckinghamshire is the 32nd largest of England’s 48 territorial units (the largest being No...

Glasgow is Scotland’s largest city, the fourth largest in the UK and the 27th largest in Europe. More than 600,000 people live in Glasgow today, even though the population was over 1.1 million before the middle of the 20th century. Since then, many people have moved to nearby towns and now in Grater Glasgow region live almost 1.8 million people, about a third of Scotland’s total population. What to see The city is well known for its university, founded in 1451. The university has 35,000 students from 140 countries, employs around 9,000 people and is one of the world’s top 100 universities. There are also a number of other highly ranked universities in Glasgow where young people from many parts of the world come to study. Although Glasgow has always been an industrial city, especially known for shipbuilding, it also has a very large cultural heritage. There are many museums, art galleries and exhibitions in the city, but the history can be felt simply by walking through its streets. Pop...

Scottish highways The road network in Scotland is very well developed and virtually all, even the smallest, roads are paved. There are relatively few holes on them, even if they are in remote areas, so driving is quite enjoyable. The total length of the Scottish highways (according to 2017 data) is 56 thousand 250 kilometres, of which 632 kilometres are motorways. Strange as it may sound, the longest road network is in the Scottish Highlands . There can be conventional Scottish roads with one lane in each direction (almost 28,000 kilometres in total), two- or three-lane motorways, or very narrow local roads with single file traffic sections. To be able to drive there, special passing places have been created on those roads. This type of carriageway is particularly common in the Scottish islands and makes driving slower but quite interesting. To get to and return from Scotland, most motorists use the M74, which runs from the southern border of Scotland and is a continuation of the M6 ...

West of Scotland If you are in Glasgow and fancy to go somewhere else, you can reach an interesting place on one of the western peninsulas of the Argyll and Bute region in a few hours. The Argill and Bute region is the second largest (almost 7,000 square kilometres, larger are only the Scottish Highlands) in Scotland and borders the Stirling , Scottish Highlands and a few other regions. However, the region has low population density and, with less than 90,000 living there, it is the sixth from the bottom of the list. The region begins relatively close to Glasgow, just before Helensburg. Because of its lakes, region has two large peninsulas and three large western Scottish islands – the Isle of Islay, the Isle Jura and the Isle of Mull. There are two major roads in the region in the north-south direction and one in the east-west direction (in its northern part). The vast majority of roads are local and on many occasions those have single lane for driving in both directions. However, as...

This time I will start with a short summary. We were planning to go to Cornwall for at least seven years. It didn’t happen because it was quite far from Scotland – travel costs also played serious role. While living in the south of England we couldn’t do it in the beginning because there were many other places to go. We decided to go to Cornwall after listening to stories from others about how unique and beautiful it is. After the trip there, I can say one thing – the idea of visiting Cornwall could have been not the highest priority. Mainly because of associated costs. The cost of the trip was essentially at least the same as nice comfortable weekend in Rome . To be honest, the feeling and impressions after returning home from Rome were also better at the end. The value you get for the money you spend plays significant role here and for me it would be in favour of Italy. Roughly speaking, everything in Cornwall was about half as expensive as it should be based on my travel experience ...

This is about the second day in Cornwall. After the first day we went to the nearby local pub The Shire Inn for dinner before going to bed. It is about a 15-minute walk from the guest house we used for staying at night. The atmosphere and service were good, the food and the local Cornish beer were also delicious – just like in a gastropub. The bill surprised me a bit though – they know how to use supposedly normal prices in such a way that at the end you get a bill what is at least ten pounds more than expected. Minak Theatre In the morning, right after breakfast, we went to an interesting place – an amphitheatre built in the rocks, where real performances are held often. This place was a real surprise we got in Cornwall. The author and creator of the theatre idea was a local woman, Rowena Cade. The name Minak (meynek in the local language) means rocky place. The woman started creating theatre in the thirties of the last century. Minack Theatre is located in the very south of the pe...

Central Scotland Stirling, known as the coronation place of the Scottish kings, is in central Scotland. It is often called the gateway to the Highlands because the famous region of the Scottish Highlands begins not that far from there. The city is one of the most popular tourist destinations and in the past has even been the capital of Scotland. Stirling was established as a royal city in 1130, although people have inhabited this area for about four thousand years. Stirling is around 25 miles north-east of Glasgow and less than 40 miles north-west of Edinburgh, forming a kind of a triangle on the map between these three Scottish cities; they are all well connected by modern motorways. Although Stirling has city status, it is only nineteenth of the 51 towns and cities in Scotland with a population of less than 38,000. Medieval Stirling castle and old town As the city is not too big, the old town is not large too, however, Stirling Castle , which is located at the top of a steep volcani...

Every respectful tourist destination offers travellers a wide variety of entertainment, from exhibitions, museums, and art galleries, to amusement parks and even shopping centres. After a while, something new has appeared in London and that place is worth visiting - Battersea Power Station. And this site is not even included in many tourist guides yet One of the well-known categories of these objects is landmarks. Along such famous landmarks as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Statue of Liberty in New York or the Colosseum in Rome the Battersea Power Station looks quite impressive. The methods of building and presenting these objects as well as their offerings to visitors can be very different, but they have one thing in common - they are all well known internationally and become symbols of those places they are located. From the second half of 2023, a new object in London has been opened for viewing and visiting. Battersea Power Station complements such existing attractions as the Londo...

In short, Devon is a county located in the Southwest of England and lies between Cornwall and Somerset; it also has a short border with Dorset in the southeast. Devon has an area of 6,707 square kilometres and has a population of a bit more than one million people. Interesting fact – Devon is slightly bigger than the State of Palestine and is more than 20 times bigger than the smallest EU member state Malta. The biggest city is Exeter, however, Devon is very well known because of its seaside towns located on the English Channel coast. During the summer, many holidaymakers go to such nice and popular places as Torquay and Dartmouth.  However, we decided to head even more to the south of Devon and visited Bigbury on Sea and Hope Cove during a weekend in September. Both Bigbury on Sea (located not far from Plymouth) and Hope Cove are located in the South Hams district. Getting there The fastest way to get there (assuming that you come from a place located more to the north) is to driv...

There are so many places to visit in Dorset. This is another post about a day out near Bournemouth. One Sunday, we got plenty of sunshine and decided to go to the south-eastern part of the Isle of Purbeck – some 20 miles (30 kilometres) from Poole. It could have been less if we decided to use Sandbanks Ferry (it would only be about 12 miles away), however, we decided to drive by car. Durlston Country Park and National Nature Reserve We intended to have a little Sunday hike, so we went directly to Durlston Country Park parking. The only way to get there is to drive through Swanage because that is the only road to access the country park and when you reach it that also is the end of that road. The good news is that they have a nice parking lot and prices are reasonable. For example, if you only wish to visit the castle and the Great Globe, one hour would be enough and parking would cost you £2; parking is located next to the castle. If you wish to have a little walk along the coast and o...

Visiting Plymouth Plymouth is a coastal city located on the South coast of England between Devon (South Hams district) and Cornwall. It has a population of about 260 thousand people being a relatively small city; it got city status in 1928. We decided to visit Plymouth because of two major reasons – Plymouth Gin Distillery and National Marine Aquarium. I shall say straight away that as it appeared, Plymouth is even nicer than we could imagine – it looked very clean and cosy, people we met there were friendly and nice. Getting there One of the disadvantages of visiting Plymouth is its remote location. Plymouth is located about 200 miles (350 kilometres) from London and if you have a car may be reached in about four hours. If you go by public transport, it may take even less time from London Paddington station if you get a direct Great Western train. There are a lot of parking spaces around the city centre, although you are allowed to park for only up to two hours at some of them. We de...

Harry Potter After spending several days on the Isle of Skye , our next destination was the Scottish Highlands. On the way from Mallaig to Fort William we were observing exciting scenery of an old railway. Its track starts at Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, passes through the westernmost railway station Arisaig, then passes the deepest freshwater lake Loch Morar, and finally stops near Loch Nevis, Europe’s deepest seawater lake. The total length of the railway track is 135 kilometres (84 miles). The train itself, which runs on these tracks, became very popular because it was used for making movies about Harry Potter. In the film it is called Hogwarts Express; you may already know that the author of the book J.K. Rowling is from Scotland. The railway crosses the road several times, so we were able to watch the train’s journey across bridges, through gorges and tunnels more than once. Accommodation Our first destination was the small town of Strathyre because there is the hotel Mu...