First day in Scotland

Our trip to Scotland started with a delay of six hours in the flight, due to a strike. Long story short we ended up arriving in the hotel at 03:00 in a rainy morning, but in the next day we decided to wake up at 08:00, we were in Scotland and we wanted to enjoy our trip.

First day we decided to go north of Edinburgh.

Our first day in Scotland was a curious day, it was the biggest snowfall since the beginning of the year in the Aberdeen region and we did not know about it.

Bad weather in the Edinburgh Bridge

We started our trip in rainy conditions but we were already warned about the Scottish weather, and we believed would get better.

Snow along the road

Later we would find some inches of snow along the countryside. Since we are from a region that never has snow, it was an unique view and a new experience on vacations.

Windy in St. Andrews ruins

Our first stop was in St. Andrews. Our goal was to see the remaining ruins of the castle, it has not much left and it was so windy and moist that we left the car only for some minutes.

Arriving in Dundee

Time to continue north and continue to the city of Dundee, we stopped there to eat something and nothing much. We didn't find any points of interest we were interested.

The Glamis Castle

We decided to visit the Glamis castle inside and it was worth it. I will talk about it later.

The Scottish countryside

We continued north to see the Scottish countryside and more castles.

Castles and snow. Good enough for us.

This was one of the castles we saw. I cannot remember the name but it was west of Aberdeen.

Castle fields

Castles may be amazing but the plain castle fields are also beautiful, specially with the white from the snow.

Driving an Auris in Scotland

Most of my Car rental bookings are made with Europcar, it offers a competitive price and I never had any problems regarding the Pick up and the return point. I will leave this discussion for another post, "Choosing the Car Rental Company".

Toyota Auris in the Glamis Castle (2012)

In this case driving an Auris was better than driving the expected Renault Megane, Europcar did not have enough cars so they had to offer me a superior class than the one hired. It can happen to you, but it isn't very common.

The Auris was a great car for very long road trips. It was comfortable and with lots space to arrange stuff like the camera, gloves and even bottles.
Regarding the driving itself, it was my first time driving on the right, and I found it mostly easy, specially because it was an automatic, not needing to use the left hand to change gears. The steering was good, and it was easy to park almost everywhere with the help of a rear camera.

If you are considering choosing an Auris, you are probably making a good choice, at least the Hybrid version.

The Eilean Donan Castle and why you should visit it

The beautiful Eilean Donan located far away from the cities of Glasgow(173 miles) and Edinburgh (192 miles) is an icon of Scotland, one of the most famous Scottish castles around the world.

The castle is estimated to be founded in the thirteenth century and it was advantageous due to its location on an island, protecting from the invasions since it didn't have any bridge yet.
It was destroyed in the eighteenth century by the government ships due to Jacobin rebellions in the Great Britain. It was also a time in which castles were losing importance and sea transportation was experiencing new developments.

Fortunately in the 1920s it was decided to restore the castle and thirty years later in 1955 it opened to the public.

So why should you visit this castle?
First take a look at it, it has not beautiful walls as Carcassonne neither a majestic structure, but it is perfectly located on an island which makes it almost unique.

Another advantage is the landscape, it is beautiful around the castle as you will find in many Scottish castles.

So, why haven't I visited it?
Even though it is considered a must-see in Scotland, I did not visit it due to its location, it is not easy to get there if you want to visit more on the lands of Scotland. I ended up visiting Edinburgh and the area near Edinburgh (East), leaving west Scotland for another trip.

Edinburgh Easyhotel

I have to say my expectations were a bit high, I had stayed in the London Victoria Easyhotel and the experience was quite good, so for my stay in Edinburgh I decided to give it a shot on an Easyhotel.

The Edinburgh Easyhotel was not so good as the one in London, our first impression was negative, since the room was a little cold and the sheets did not seem so clean, nothing really bad but on our other experience everything was very good.

When choosing an Easyhotel, you should know the main reasons for its low price, the main reason is the room space, which is very small with only the essential furniture(basically the bed). Since we only wanted a place to sleep, this was enough, but we decided to pay a little more, and in the morning we would wake up with this great view, the Edinburgh Castle.

View from the Window - Special Room

Why the Easyhotel in Edinburgh?

I must say the location was the main advantage of this hotel, when you consider the price we were willing to pay. As I told before we had a car, so we also wanted a hotel near a public park, and we did not care so much about public transportation.

Location
The Easyhotel Edinburgh has its address on Princes Street with direct access to the West Princes Street Gardens and very near to the castle.

The Rooms

The door of our room, window is on the right, bathroom in the left and the bed in the center

There are three choices, Small room with window, without window and a standard room with window.
Our choice was the Standard room to get the view, and it was worth it, specially in the morning. The bathrooms are really small but enough for what we wanted.
The quality of our sleeping was good, we did not hear other guests neither street noise.

This photo is from the entrance, there is not much room for luggage 

The Hotel
When you get to the door you should ring the bell, so do not try to open the door, it is not worth to push it hard. The reception is open 24h, since we arrived there at 02 AM, we can confirm that they were efficient even in the dawn.
There are no lifts, so you have to take the stairs to the reception, which is on the first floor. If you are carrying anything heavy, be prepared to use your strength.
If you need there is a computer on the reception with free Internet for the clients.

Where to eat near the Hotel
We chose to dinner one day at the Amber Rose (Tripadvisor ranking), it was a champions league night and the restaurant was quite crowded, still we got a table and had the opportunity to eat. If you have the opportunity to go there, it has a good atmosphere but the food was nothing special.
There are two Starbucks near the hotel, one of them is almost side by side with the hotel, a good option for a hot drink and get free WiFi.
Even thought not being the most commercial place in Edinburgh, there are plenty of option near the hotel.

If you are feeling hungry in the room, the hotel has some drink & food machines, which can be a good option since the price is not exorbitant and the options are god.

Overall

For the price we paid it was quite good, a simple room for some quiet nights.

Visiting Scotland

We decided to visit Scotland during April, Spring time.

April may not be the best month for a trip to Scotland, some of places are still preparing for the high season, and there are a few castles closed. However it is also an opportunity to see the Spring and we even saw some of the places with snow, curiously during our first night there, it was the night of the biggest snow fall of 2012.

The Glamis Castle with the white snow instead of the green grass

Our main goal when visiting Scotland was to visit the castles around the country, so we chose to rent a car during all the time we were there. The main disadvantage was in the big cities, we did not visit much of them, we spent three nights in Edinburgh and one night in the suburbs of Glasgow.

We did not make a smart choice spending so much nights in one place, but in the beginning we still did not know we were going to Dunrobin, right in the North of Scotland. It gave us the opportunity to visit a variety of places around Edinburgh, but on the other hand less coverage of landscapes, specially in Glencoe.
Our advise if you want to visit several castles is to sleep at least one night in the north, near the Lake Ness, probably in Inverness.

The Dunrobin Castle, the reason we went most northerly than we expected

We caught a flight from Lisbon to Manchester, it was easier and cheaper than the other options. (Flying directly to Edinburgh or doing a scale), so we decided to rent a car in Manchester and drive to Edinburgh, if you have spare time, it is a nice trip since you pass by places as Lancaster and you can divert to see the Hadrian's Wall.

Edinburgh Castle view from the Easyhotel

Since we were in the Edinburgh Easyhotel we visited Edinburgh during the late afternoon, during the day we travelled with the car, avoiding to pay parking We decided not to visit the Edinburgh Castle, since we did not have enough time to visit everything, and the most important jewels were not available in the exhibition. We were told that a good visit should last at least two hours, and for us the castle was closing in an hour.


Scotland has amazing landscapes and castles. It is surely one of the trips that was worth it and we are planning to come back.

So some of the advices we can make are:

• Choose wisely what you want to visit in Scotland. Between cities, castles, lakes and mountains, there are several options with a distance between them.
• Consider the season you want to go, different seasons offer different colours in the landscape, specially in Glencoe.
• The time of the day of your visit is also important, remember the sun rises in east and sets in west. In the Arthur's seat in Edinburgh this can be useful, since the best view can be in the morning, and in the late afternoon the sun is setting on the horizon.
• When doing the budget on visiting castles, plan at least £12 for each person, at least 2 hours and if you like a walk around the castle gardens.
• On some remote places, as Glencoe you may not find restaurants or any retail, so be prepared and always carry something, specially water.