Scotland
We left Schiphol late in the afternoon for the short flight to Edinburgh where we were to collect a hire car for our stay in Scotland, Unfortunately this was before the time when GPS units were standard equipment in hire cars, much to our regret as we found later.
It seems that when the street name signs were removed during the 2nd world war no one thought to replace them during peace time, it seems that street names are a state secret and if you know them they might have to do away with you
We collected our car on but there was no one who could give us accurate directions to our overnight stay at “Firth of Forth Cramond” and by the time we arrived it was after dinner time as we got lost a few times on the way.
Our accommodation that night was at a better backpacker lodge not something we would normally pick but the price was right and it was only one night, to our surprise our room was away from the normal backpacker rooms in a quieter section reserved for families, and it was being managed by an Aussie.
That night we went for a walk looking for some food and an ATM, we asked a local who answered in his broad Scottish accent, the directions to a machine that “does not charge you anything to take your money out”
In the morning we loaded the car and asked for directions to Dundee which we were given in clear terms, we were not far from the main road we were to take.
Both Carol and I noted the GREEN of the grass in the farms as we drove past saying that it did not seem normal after all we are used to the brownish green of the Australian bush.
This being Carol’s trek to her family roots when we arrived in Dundee our first task was not to look for a place to stay but the information desk to find someone who could guide us in her quest to establish her family tree (Margaret Blanch Marr’s Grand Father was from either Dundee or Forfar) that done it was time to arrange some accommodation we were given the name of a B&B but by the time we arrived they were booked out, on the way we noticed another place so we thought it was worth trying there, Bingo we were lucky, they had room but there was “No Curry to be eaten in the room”, as luck would have it the only cafés that were open nearby were Indian, we ate in the café that night but took our leftovers back to the room in tightly sealed containers.
It seems Carol and our landlord had things in common and as we were not “English” he became more than just friendly explaining he had registered the website “Faulty Towers” a name Carol also had for one of her clients you can now imagine the conversation from there.
While gathering genealogical information was not as fruitful as we would have liked, we did find the area where they may have lived so we could at lease explore that and take a side tour to St Andrews not for the Golf but for its history that proved to be an interesting day.
When we finally left Dundee we were given very detailed instructions for our return to Edinburgh, not only to our hotel but to cheap petrol to fill up with before returning our car and where to return our car so this time we did not get lost.
We then had a few days to explore. The only bad thing we found was Starbucks and that was by accident when we both felt like an iced coffee, neither of us realised that they did not know how to make a good Iced coffee then we noticed the name “Starbucks” and remembered that the Americans can not make a half decent coffee that alone a real good coffee, we both noted down to NEVER buy coffee at Starbucks ever again and the only time I did I remembered why I said that!
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Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s Travels to Europe
Italy Trip 2008