Sept 26 Whiskey Country

It was so nice to stay at a great guest house and get comfortable for 2 nights.  The next week will be a marathon trying to see as much as we can in 6 days.  On Our way to the Highlands we of course had to have a couple of side trips.  Our first stop was the Blair Castle and gardens.  Great to stop and tour a castle fully furnished in the original furniture, from here we went to the House of Bruar The House is an expensive shopping center where you can purchase cashmere sweaters, fine woolen tweeds, food, chocolate all part of Scotish  tourism , we escaped with nothing.
After carefully driving the windy narrow roads we arrived at our next destination.  The Craighleche Hotel extremely expensive and our room was in the "garden level" detached from the hotel and  our view was the parking lot.  The whiskey festival was going on in Dufftown so we decided to take the bus about 6 miles to the party,  our patience  ran out and we hired a taxi.  We were too late for the party so instead went on a private tour of Glenfidich with a very knowledgableyoung  woman.  The tour took   us around the production site and in the end of course we had to sample some fine scotch.  We had a very nice dinner at the hotel and planned our next day of driving.

Sept 27, On the way to Isle of Skye

As i mentioned earlier the roads are less than desirable so that being said we decided to head directly over to the Isle of Skye and pass on a town called Loosiemouth that was a cute little port town according to the website.  This day of travel would take us by Loch ness, we didn't see the monster but the views were breathtaking around several small bodies of water.  We toured another castle called Elin De Castle this castle is said to be the moset photographed castle in Scotland.  Situated on a small island it was very nice for a castle.  After spending the day in the car we finally arrived at town called Kyleakin it is a small island with several B & B everyone seemed to stop there 5 tour buses where in the parking lot.  The Corrin B & B did what it needed to do clean, private bath and a bar across.  We headed to the bar and happend to spot the chef who had lagoustinas  still wiggling in the crate.  The mussels and lagontinas were excellent, nice way to end the day.

And so we Begin Sept 23, 2014

We chose to tour Scotland, Ireland and Luxemborg this year because these are countries we havent been too.  The flight from Mpls to Amsterdam was an overnight flight that went off without a hitch, after a small layover we headed to Edinburgh where we would begin traveling from Scotland to Ireland and onto Germany and Luxemborg.
Renting a car was not a problem and with an automatic, GPS, maps and alot of guts we took off headed to a small harbor town called Crail after getting lost , hitting the curb 2 times and almost taking out 4 people on the sidewalk we ended up at our first B & B.  The Hazelton Guest House is a lovely place with service beyond belief and huge amounts of information about the area.
Our hosts David and Karen were so helpful informing us of activities in the are and how to use mas transportation rather than the car.  After a 3 mile walk along the coast we eneded in a town called Anstruther where we spent time touring a Scottish fisheries musem, then hopped a city bus and headed to St. Andrew where we would tour and drool over the famous course and take in the sites.  The next day we would head up to the Whiskey country