Reluctantly we left our little room
in the Chicken Shack Lodge to be taken on our last train ride from Stirling to
Edinburgh. We made friends with our taxi
driver Peter after enjoying his little words of wisdom that we mostly could not
understand. In fact, we couldn’t understand
most of those giving us directions and probably why we wondered around a lot.
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| Taxi Driver Peter - what a character |
After getting back to Edinburgh we
decided to make sure we would be able to get on the tram to the airport in the morning. Lots of options for transportation here. The most used are walking, then bus, then train
and lastly by car (taxi). Since the Scotch
like to save money we realized that walking is always the most suggested
option. Also, lots of construction going
on in Edinburgh which makes the roads impossible to maneuver and another reason
that the pedestrians have taken over and challenge any car that even tries to
drive through an intersection. Apparently,
a red no crossing light means “run” in front of the car that has the green
signal. We just continue to run with the
crowd.
We had our final meal at our little
favorite restaurant close to the hotel called The Italian Caffe which was more
like anything you want besides Italian. The
3 little waitresses were there early in the morning and late at night and so
friendly. Always a good meal at a fair
price even if you were elbow to elbow with everyone.
We have a long journey home that will
add 8 hours to our April 30. Even though
we will get into Portland at 9:35pm it will be 5:35am in Scotland and we will
be zombies, but it will be good to be back in Oregon with everyone driving on
the right side of the road and stopping at signals and no more
roundabouts. Hallelujah!
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| The contradiction of Edinburgh - 1700 buildings vs. new high rise construction alongside each other |
Just a few final words of advice for
those of you who may want to travel to the United Kingdom. GO FOR IT!!
It’s an amazingly beautiful island filled with the friendliest and
kindest people. We will be glad to share
all our traveling expertise and show you over 1000 pictures. But we also have wisdom to share for any one
75 years old and up. If you have the urge
to travel to these beautiful Scottish Isles or anywhere in this vast world, we
recommend that you turn on your TV and watch the Rick Steve’s travelogue programs
on the Discovery Channel while you lay in bed and eat chocolate or just pay for your grandkids to take the journey. This is not a trip for those who are faint of
heart, have bad knees, bad back or both, have no sense of direction, failing
eyesight, can’t push two suitcases at the same time or just can’t understand
the Scottish brogue. And my final
personal advice: Don’t believe a word
Rita says about me!
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Why am I laughing? The Scotsman just told me to keep my hands above his waist :-)
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