Road trips, mountain walks and holidays

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...

As usually in all our trips, Dalmatia was no exception. Enjoying local food and drinks was an essential part of the trip. We did this both ways by preparing at home products we bought on the market, sea urchins caught by ourselves in the sea, and also by visiting restaurants, cafes and vineyards. Testament drink producers It sounds strange – to go to Croatia to visit a business run by Scandinavians. But as it turned out later, the drink we had bought there ended up being the best on the trip. Testament winery is located about 3 kilometres from the main road of the region D8, the nearest town is Zaboric. The basic idea of the winery is to combine technology with the knowhow of the best winemakers to create rich and complex drink from the Dalmatian region. We had written down their address before travelling, just in case, but we did not plan to visit it; the tasting of three drinks costs more than 13 euros, which is not that little money at all. However, it happened to be the only chanc...

This is most likely be one of the last blogs about Croatia in the 2022 series. There is also something else to write about. I have written this year about such wonderful places in Dalmatia as Split, Omis, Grebastica, Sevid, Rogiznica and Primosten. Some time ago I also wrote about Dubrovnik and Dalmatia . We were in Zagreb quite a long time ago, but it is the place where our great interest in Croatia began, when we drove there with our car from Riga. So this is very good reason to end where it all began. In addition, the city has many places for tourists to see and exciting entertainment opportunities can also be found. Zagreb is the capital of Croatia with a population of less than 800 thousand people. Zagreb is the largest city in Croatia. City’s surroundings have been inhabited since the time of the Romans, but the city was founded in 1242, when the Tatars arrived in the region. The king took refuge in the city from the invaders and in gratitude allowed it to maintain its judicial...

Istrian Peninsula The Istrian peninsula is one of Croatia’s many peninsulas, but it differs from many others because it is located in the north of the country. It borders Slovenia and Italy. In general, the territory of the peninsula is shared by these three countries, but the majority (almost 90%) belongs to Croatia. Italians call the peninsula Istria. The Istrian peninsula is the largest peninsula on the Adriatic Sea. In order to understand more about its dimensions, I will just mention the distance from Pula to the Slovenian border is around 60 kilometres, and to the Italian border 80 kilometres in a straight line (it will definitely be much more when driving on the road). Istria is also known for the fact that truffles grow there – mushrooms that are used as an addition to food, especially pasta dishes. The largest city in the Croatian part is Pula, located in the very south of the peninsula, but the Slovenian city of Koper and the Italian city of Trieste are even larger. Pula has...