Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - Scotland

Welcome to the Scottish leg of our trip. We actually have one more day here in Scotland before we head back to Australia via Hong Kong, and we have one more foodie experience today so I will talk about that a bit later.

Let's get the most obvious question answered first - yes, we tried haggis! More on that later.

After spending the week in London, we caught the train up to Edinburgh. It was so fast, only taking around 4 hours, so we had the afternoon to wander around the city. After having a truly terrible pizza at a place on the Royal Mile for lunch, we took a slow stroll up the hill. We were fortunate enough to be here right at the end of the Edinburgh festival, so there was a great atmosphere with part of the street closed off, street performer, touts for comedy shows and just generally some great opportunities for people watching. For dinner we had really great Thai at one of the newer shopping centres in town.

The reason why we came to Edinburgh before our tour though was to go to the Military Tattoo which was an amazing experience. It had been quite warm during the day, but we did get absolutely drenched when the rain started falling about half way through the show! These days the tattoo is not just about your traditional style of pipers, dancers, military bands etc, those were still the highlights for me. Overall it was an amazing experience that I have grateful to have been at. If we never have the opportunity to go again that will be okay, but if we do have the chance to go again I would jump at it!

Here's a taster

When we were planning what to do on the Saturday, we wanted to do something outside of Edinburgh as we knew we were coming back as part of the trip. We therefore chose to do a day trip to Hadrian's Wall. As our guide said, we came to Scotland only to then go back to England!

Our first stop was in a pretty town called Jedburgh, which has a ruined abbey (not the last ruins we would see in this part of the trip) but also has a museum about Mary Queen of Scots, who spent some time in the town.

We then crossed the border and stopped at Steel Rigg which is part of the wall, and then onto a Roman site called Vindolanda. Vindolanda was a Roman fort which pre-dated the wall, and is an ongoing archeological dig. It was very interesting. After a final stop at the wall, we headed back to Edinburgh, we had Italian for dinner. 

The next day we hired a car for the day to go from Edinburgh to Glasgow. It really only takes an hour but we chose to go and explore a bit. We started at Falkirk where we visited The Kelpies and also visited the Falkirk Wheel. We were hoping to go on the wheel but unfortunately it was booked out, so we just had to watch. What a fascinating piece of engineering this is. It replaces many locks with one single contraption where the canal boats sail into a cradle, which then transports the boat down to the lower level of water, and then the boat sails off along the canal.

At the Kelpies we tried something new to us called tiffin. It's a chocolate slice with biscuit chunks in. We have something very similar at home which we call Chocolate Hedgehogs. Whatever your call it, it was delicious.

We then visited the battle site at Bannockburn and then headed to Glasgow to meet our tour. The next morning we had a tour of Glasgow and some time to wander around and then we headed to Stirling Castle which I absolutely loved! I could easily have spent more time there. 

On the way to Edinburgh we stopped in the lovely village of Culross and then to our hotel for a quick refresh and then we chose to go on an optional inclusion which was a Spirit of Scotland dinner. At this event there were dancers, a piper, a fiddler and a piano accordion and we were treated to lots of traditional Scottish music...and yes...food!

The evening started with the piping in of the haggis, and then the address to the haggis.

We then got to taste haggis. Now I have had haggis before so I did know what to expect but not everyone in our group did. Whilst I wouldn't choose to eat haggis if it was on a menu it is okay to eat. We then had a three course meal. My starter was a fig and strawberry thing (not sure how traditional that it but never mind) and then Cullen Skink Pie (which is a fish pie) and then Cranachan for dessert, which is whipped cream, oats and raspberries - delicious! It was a fun night.

The next day we visited Edinburgh castle. We had quite a bit of free time here so we were able to wander around, visit the various parts of the castle, visit a couple of the regimental museums as well as the Scottish National Military museum.

We then went to the Royal Britannia yacht to see how the royal family lived when they were basically on holidays. We headed straight for the tea rooms and had scones and clotted cream and then finished wandering around the boat, including this very impressive formal dining room. We could have easily spent more time on the yacht.

After this, we headed to an Italian restaurant in the city, for what was probably the best meal of the tour. Some of the hotel food was pretty average. I will say,  it surprises me how much fish I ate on this trip.

From Edinburgh we headed to the highlands, with stops at St Andrews where we saw the golf course and then walked to the ruined castle and cathedral, the to the spa town of Pitlochrie which was gorgeous, and a visit to Culloden.

The next day we visiting the town of Ullapool where we had Scottish Seafood Soup and then onto Loch Ness where we searched to no avail for Nessie, and then we visited a small town on the Isle of Skye before heading back to Glasgow via Glenfinnan (home to the Harry Potter viaduct), Glen Coe and Loch Lomond.

I literally have hundreds of photos of mountains and lochs that I could share but this post is already way too long. Today, we are visiting a museum and then going for afternoon tea, and then tomorrow we make our way to Hong Kong, but I could definitely see ourselves coming back to Scotland to explore some more.

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