The Great British Castle and Baked Goods Tour 2022

[melcort10]

Good morning from Logan Airport! We, Mel, Dan, Miles (6) and Carson (3), are off on a 3 week trip to Great Britain consisting of 3 locations in Scotland and a final fling in London! I hope you will enjoy riding along. Unfortunately there are no Disney parks in our itinerary this year but many other “parks” in the other sense of the word. I owe many liners thanks for their perspective and travel tips as this trip has been in the works for quite some time! I feel for all those of you with long countdowns but can’t believe how quickly this happened at the end. Thank you @Nickysyme, @Shmebulock and @missoverexcited!

DS6 took this pic of the sunrise over Somerville as we drove in this morning.

We are waiting at our gate now. This is the coolest Instagram spot!

We’ll miss you Boston! See ya in July!

[melcort10]

Our rough itinerary…

Hmmm, wrong castle! We actually have only two castles planned but the title felt fitting for this forum.

We’re headed here tomorrow in the lower Highlands/Trossachs (lakes region) for a week!

Then on to Edinburgh (where the castles are) and the Isle of Arran. Hopefully I can keep up with the pictures!

[Shmebulock]

Superb! Safe travels to you all @melcort10.
Have a fabulous trip.
Looking forward to meeting you, but also not rushing your trip away. Enjoy it all!!

[missoverexcited]

Safe travels! I’m sure you are going to have gorgeous pics to share, I am looking forward to it!

[melcort10]

We are at Heathrow! I forgot to thank @hodg who has been super helpful with the London portion!! The boys are sad we don’t get to stay in London today!

[melcort10]

[hodg]

I was on the wrong thread- Welcome to the U.K.!

[ThorKat]

Excited to follow this! I have dreams of visiting these places someday!

[Jeff_AZ]

Hope you’re already having the time of your life! DW and I would love to make it back to the UK someday! There are so many places we want to travel, actually …

[Dreamer]

That is a great castle. But there are plenty of others that really are in the UK! Only two for three weeks seems odd to me. We probably visited a dozen.

[melcort10]

Good morning from Scotland!! No exciting pictures to share yet but two thumbs up for the Holiday Inn Express Glasgow Airport. Nothing beats a 2 minute walk with luggage at 10:30pm.

I agonized over whether to fly the usual overnight to Europe or during the day and I’m super glad that we did the daytime! Kids went to bed right at 11pm and are still sleeping at 8:30am! With no night wake ups. And I also feel refreshed!

@Dreamer

But there are plenty of others that really are in the UK! Only two for three weeks seems odd to me.

Does the Tower of London count? 8 of our days are in London so no castles there that I can think of. But I did miss one besides Edinburgh and Craigmillar - we will go to Brodick Castle on Arran too. Hopefully we see more on our drives!

Now we wait for Oma to arrive at noon and we’re off to the Highland Games!!

[missoverexcited]

Enjoy Scotland!

[Nickysyme]

Have fun, hope the weather is kind.

[Dreamer]

Yes, the Tower of London counts. Make sure you do the free guided tour when you’re there.

[melcort10]

So the weather has pleasantly surprised me! It was forecasted to rain all day (and it mostly did) but the sun came out in between!

We had an easy day. Picked up our car and our Oma and got on the road to the Trossachs. DH did an excellent job of keeping us on the left side of the road! It feels much less scary than I was expecting. The crazier part has been driving on the two way/single lane roads!!

We went to the Bearsden & Milngavie Highland Games and they were very cool. It felt very local but we got to see some of the games (mostly haggis tossing), some dogs, music and some snacks. I had a bacon roll and some shortbread. Kids got “candy floss”!

We went to Morrison’s which was great but we had to be judicious because of space in the car. Got to our lodge around 5 and we just had dinner at home with a view. (Not sure if you can tell…)

Got the kids to bed around 8:30 which was ideal and then I took advantage of this! 40 degree water, probably 10 degree air and drizzling? Fantastic.

[Nickysyme]

It looks gorgeous.

We had a couple of torrential showers yesterday and today, but still very warm. Edinburgh is meant to have a mini heat wave this week and up to 20 degrees by next weekend.

[Shmebulock]

@melcort10

Milngavie

Ok liners (apart from @Nickysyme), who can correctly guess how this is pronounced??

[Shmebulock]

Your lodge looks very nice @melcort10
Wine and spa - you’re doing your trip right

[katielouhou]

Like mig-vee? No mocking or I’ll come after you with some Southern US town names

[Nickysyme]

Ha ha! This could be fun reading tomorrow morning.