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...

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...