Let us continue on our Mexico detour begun yesterday with our ambitious bus trip into the Scottish countryside! As part of of dragging our family & friends over to Glasgow for our wedding, we wanted to make sure they saw a sufficient smattering of the things that make Scotland so amazing. Obviously that list could get pretty long, but we pared it down to lochs, whiskey, and castles. In a truly fingers-crossed moment that Tuesday morning one year ago, John & I both heaved a sigh of relief as the bus we’d hired blindly from the US rolled up in front of our hotel right on time. We had a tight agenda planned & no time to waste!!
The Carmann crew pre-boat cruise and pre-Herickhoff addition. 
First it was off to lovely Loch Lomond for an hour-long boat cruise on the Astina. We were there early enough to secure basically the whole front of the boat’s open upper deck for ourselves, and we proceeded to bask in the sunlight while circling around the loch. (Check out the song immortalizing this Bonnie Loch here on YouTube.)
All our schoolkids eating their cold lunches on the grounds of Glengoyne distillery!
Next stop: Glengoyne, Scotland’s “Most Beautiful Distillery”! Clearly no trip to Scotland would be complete without a whisky tour!! We took advantage of the beautiful scenery and ate our bagged lunch on the grounds around the distillery buildings. Cheers to Seb’s Cafe in Glasgow for packing us AMAZING mediterranean lunches to go, with freshly-baked bread & tasty spinach/feta pastries. Sooo tasty.
Several happy whisky-tasters assessing Glengoyne's finest!
After our lunch break, we headed in to meet the Glengoyne folks & kick things off with a whisky tasting! (Well, at least everyone who had fully recovered from the night before…) This was followed by a brief tour of the whisky-making process, where we were amused several times at the lack of overly-anal safety precautions that one might expect in the US (i.e. go ahead & touch the 500-degree copper cauldron if you’re stupid; be our guest!). Eventually we dragged everyone out of the overly-alluring gift shop…
Tanya tried to hang back to sneak a taste straight from the copper stills...
Posing with a few sacrificial barrels outside the distillery.
Our first view of Stirling Castle towering over the countryside!
And the final stop on our bus tour: the imposing Stirling Castle, located about an hour north of Glasgow in Stirling. As per the website, “It towers over some of the most important battlefields of Scotland’s past including Stirling Bridge, the site of William Wallace’s victory over the English in 1297, and Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce defeated the same foe in the summer of 1314.” Quite a storied past!! I think good times were had by all wandering around the amazing stone buildings & taking photos of each other looking quite majestic. 
The happy couple inside the Castle
One of the many amazing views from atop the Castle
We even briefly got to be King & Queen inside the Great Hall...
The Scottish appeared to have chosen a sufficiently-rugged spot to build a castle on...
EVERYTHING in Scotland is sooo green, with purple heather scattered about.
Here's me trying not to fall down as bus driver Andy whipped around the curvy roads of Scotland, while sharing riveting comments with the first 4 rows that could hear me
The bus tour turned out to be a wild success, with all our visits running smoothly & offering much more relaxation than driving a rented car on the wrong side of the road! We returned to Glasgow for dinner in Merchant Square, a fun pseudo-courtyard that once held Glasgow’s Fruit Market and now is home to a number of bars & restaurants. A few ambitious folks finished up the night at Blackfriars, an excellent pub offering numerous beers on tap + cask ales as well as live music. More to follow soon! (And thanks to Marcia/Larry/Heidi/Scott for some of the above pics!)
on May 15th, 2010 at 1:07 am
Hi Nice Flashback of Wedding Week in Scotland.
on Apr 14th, 2011 at 4:13 am
Wow you packed alot into your week! Looks like you had a great time!