The Plan

I'll be leaving for Scotland on Sunday and won't be back until Wednesday of the following week, so I thought that I'd offer a quick overview of my plans for the ten-day trip, as I don't plan to be blogging from Scotland (I'd rather spend my time seeing the country than a computer screen).  If I get the chance, I may do brief updates from Twitter (the sidebar just to the right) and post a picture or two.  When I get back, I'll have a lot to talk about (and lots of pictures, of course), hopefully making the wait for updates worthwhile.

We plan to start off in the capital city of Edinburgh, where we'll stay for three days.  While here we'll visit the Castle (after Marburg, no city is complete without a castle on a hill and Edinburgh is lucky enough to meet this requirement), the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Royal Mile, and otherwise just wander around the city.  We're not ruling out pub visits either...  Starting the trip off this way is going to spoil us a bit, as our next stop is the Isle of Mull.

The Isle of Mull is one of the larger islands in the Inner Hebrides, but doesn't mean it's a thriving urban center - the entire population is about 2,500.  I'm looking forward to this destination the most, as the island has ruined castles, pictish standing stones, whale watching, puffins, and the famed Iona Abbey.  We were also lucky enough to find a hotel in a nice old fishing village (by that I naturally mean former fishing village, current tourist center) and there are supposed to be lots of deserted beaches with white sand near the town.  Should I get to feeling daring I may try a (very) brief swim. 

After leaving the Isle of Mull we'll be keeping the rural vibe and heading to Drumnadrochit (no, I can't pronounce it either, and neither can the locals so they just call it "The Drum"), a farming village right on Loch Ness.  We've only got one day here, but that should be enough to at least capture the Loch Ness Monster, putting an end to the controversy once and for all.  From Drumnadrochit we'll head slightly north to Inverness, the largest city in the Highlands (not saying much, as it is about the size of Marburg).  Weirdly, it is Europe's fastest growing city.  Inverness should be a nice change from what we've seen so far, and the town is small enough that we might have a chance of seeing a fair chunk of it. 

Sadly, that's all that we'll have time for, but I think that the itinerary includes a nice mix of small-town, urban, and rural Scotland.  I'm looking forward to it very much (no big shocker there) and now I just have to find a way to make the weather cooperate...