The challenge for us in Scotland was to cram all the things in four days—as with every less than two week period trip. For instance, Inverness and Loch Ness would have been great but are incredibly far north and buried in the highlands. The alternative was Loch Lomond, a quick hour-long train ride north from Glasgow to a tiny town.
Balloch (bal•lock—the ‘ck’ sounds more like a throat being cleared) sits at the southern end of Loch Lomond (Lock•Low•men) and The Trossachs National Park. Our Uber driver tells us that it is a holiday destination for locals and that he enjoys spending the day on the shore there with a disposable grill (or BBQ, as he called it—to Heather’s slight confusion at first). As the tourists we are, we were there for a cruise around the loch and for someone else to make us lunch.
It was great weather for a very chill cruise around the southern part of the lake (memories of San Diego’s boat tour in the bay come to mind). A pre-recorded audio guide piped through the boat telling stories of geography–meeting point between highland and lowlands, and of battles trying to rid the MacGregor name from the planet for 150 years. The tour also pointed out the rather large private or hotel-owned castles on the shorelines. Turns out there are other Lomonds in the world, apparently one just southwest of our Pleasanton family.
Being near a body of water, having fish and chips for lunch was easy but we don’t think we chose well. David was far from pleased and joked the “Blue Lagoon” restaurant must be Scottish for Long John Silver’s. Turns out we missed a huge opportunity to grab take-away and sit in the park before letting the kids play on the playground and then jumping on the train back to Glasgow.
Lest we forget, we committed to returning to Edinburgh to tour the castle!
Leaving enough room for Loch Lomond and travel between, timing had us book the last tour of the day. Again, we mistakenly assumed “tour” meant there would actually be a physical guide leading the way (deceived by a Rick Steves’ segment), we were left with the self-guided audio tour. The silver lining being it gave something for the kids to play with and control.
Walking around the major sights, queuing up audio numbers on demand, and dodging pesky raindrops ended up being a pretty cool late afternoon adventure. Edinburgh Castle carries a ton of doom and gloom over the now modern city. It’s still under military use and has housed loads of prisoners. It contains the Scottish Crown Jewels (the oldest crown jewels in Britain), and the remains of St. Margaret’s Chapel, the oldest building in Edinburgh (12th century). We also saw the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James VI in 1566, the castle’s Great Hall—which now displays historic armor and weapons and still hosts meetings for diplomats and such. The Scottish National War Museum is a treasure of history. All of this was worth our trip back to Edinburgh.
By the time we were done, we needed to scramble for dinner. David was convinced we couldn't go back to the US without at least attempting to eat haggis, much less having some whiskey (more Heather than David, to be honest). We strolled by a couple of places—one only served haggis and whiskey but had no kid’s menu. I mean, we couldn’t even fake our way through it for the kids, with the exception of maybe a slice of bread. The other was a small pub packed to the brim with people waiting outside, and we apparently needed reservations.
Since Edinburgh is a tourist hotspot, folks either quickly pour into pubs when the attractions close or retreat to other areas. Fearing we’d not figure something out restaurant/pub-wise quickly enough to appease the kids, we said our final goodbyes to Edinburgh for another evening of M&S takeout from the train station (much to the kids’ delight honestly) and ate on the ride back to Glasgow. David had also read that riders are not allowed to drink alcohol on ScotRail, which explains some of the looks we were getting the evening before when we cracked our beers on that ride back. Whoops! Apparently the ban has been such an improvement on the rails generally it’s only just now under appeal and review.
Since we were eating light, we promised Ethan we’d grab a pizza near the flat that came recommended.
