Leanne & Mark's 2023 European Travels

Today was a day where we didnt really achieve much at all. Leannes cough has returned with a vengance and neither of us got much sleep last night. So the first task today was to find a quack to have a look. We were directed to the Mary Hewetson Cottage Hospital, a local walk in and rehab clinic. The staff we really nice and helpful and confirmed that her lungs were clear, and prescribed a steroid inhaler to try and get the cough under control - its probably Leanne's post-Covid cough revved up after her infection a few weeks ago and hopefully the inhaler will help. Next step was to get the prescription filled - and of course neither of the local pharmacies had it in stock. So we headed 20 minutes down the road in Grasmere, where a tiny village pharmacy had some. Through all this the rain just plummeted down in a steady downpour. This continued all day - we've had 17mm today. Given the weather, which meant we couldnt see much or get out in the rain with Leanne's cough, we dec...

Today we woke to a cold, wet blustery morning as we headed off into England and the second half of our trip. Our last destinations in Scotland were Auchterden and Lochgelly, two adjacent towns where I believe two of Leanne's great, great grandparents lived/were buried. In both places we wandered the cemetery to see if we could maybe find their graves.  No luck, as older gravestones were mostly illegible or non-existent.  Auchterden - current and original (1676 above the door) church: Lochgelly Cemetery: After that we headed for Keswick (luckily I realised it's pronounced 'Kesik' before I offended the locals), the main town in the Lakes District. On the way, we jumped off the motorway and, purely by chance, found ourselves lunching in Lockerbie - of bombed Pan Am 747 fame. When we reached Keswick we wandered around this really pretty town before enjoying an excellent Italian dinner a 5 minute walk from our B&B (Leanne had to have a chocolate gelato as we waited for a...

Today was ruins day (and other things). We had originally intended to drive to Fettercairn and then work our way back to Kinross via a series of ancestor sites.  However, Leanne lost a filling yesterday so we found a local dentist who could see her at 2pm, so we instead drove to St Andrews, via some local ancestor locales, to see the Castle and Cathedral ruins. First Stop was Burleigh Castle: Then we visited a couple of towns from some of my forebears - Minathort, Orwell Parish Church (photo), Kinneswood and Portmoak.  We then headed to St Andrews, diverting via Strathmiglo. St Andrews Castle first: Then St Andrews Cathedral: Then back to Kinross for Leannes tooth repairs, which cost a mint. After Leanne's excitement we headed down to the local Loch Leven for a foreshore stroll - cool and windy. Tomorrow we are off to England for the second half of our trip - yep, we are 3 weeks with 3 weeks to go.

We stayed just outside Inverness and after another very nice breakfast we headed into Inverness and found a laundromat to do our washing (which had reached overflowing quantities). The laundromat was near the River Ness, so we did a bit of supermarket shopping and strolled along the river while our washing was washing and drying.  We then decided to head to Kinross with some stops along the way and some of the heritage sites of my forebears.  For the first time since we got here 20 days ago I needed to get out the sunglasses 😎😎 - but that only lasted about 30 minutes before they got put away again ☁️☁️. We diverted from the motorway to avoid another crash, and stumbled across the really pretty old town of Pitlochry. After lunch there, we headed for Huntingtower Castle near Perth. The castle was an unusual building with lots of links from the various Ruthvens,  Earls of Gowrie to plots related to key royalty, including Mary Queen of Scots and King James IV. All their mac...

After another excellent breakfast at the Uig Hotel with some locals, we headed off for Loch Ness and Inverness. Since it was a 2 1/2 hour drive we booked a 1pm cruise to look for Nessie leaving from Fort Agustus. Fort Agustus is at the southern end of Loch Ness and is the start of the southern  locks that forms part of the Caledonian Canal that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea. It has a long history of settlement and conflict as part of the Jacobite Rebellion and is a pretty town straddling the lock system. The cruise was pretty ordinary and we didn't see Nessie, but we got some interesting info on searches for Nessie and some possible real world options that could explain sonar records that suggest something big(ish) is down there. After the cruise we thought we'd head to visit the Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, but being a Sunday, we couldn't get tickets as it was chockers. Disappointing, but one of the risks of touring in popular tourist areas on ...