Our second full day in Scotland was a lazy Monday. I had read through some literature at the cottage and "discovered" Cove Harbour, pictured below. It was just Ian and me on this little jaunt, a boy's morning out. You can see a house in the bottom right of the shot - someone actually lived there! They have their own private harbor and pretty stunning daily views of the North Sea! Though I'm not sure how long this villager will be able to drive to and from home - landslides (mud) occur frequently here, and even from this day to our visit on Christmas Day there were some significant changes. Enough to make me uncomfortable on the stairs leading to the path.
Right before we got to the house pictured above, we went through a Smuggler's Tunnel - where Scots used to smuggle in goods to circumvent English taxes - to get to this secluded harbor. There were rock pools, arches, keyholes - all sorts of good stuff. Here I caught Ian looking out to sea with some of the arches in the background.
Later that day we drove to the Glenkinchie distillery and took a mini-tour of the distillery, and tried two different whisky's. There was a little museum that the kids got a kick out of, with an interactive computer/movie station. In the photo below, I captured the three of them right outside the visitor entrance.
We went to find Roslyn Chapel (from "The DaVinci Code" fame) - and we did find it. It is just under some serious renovation AND they were charging 10 pounds a person to get a look around. It was an interesting idea to go see the place - but definitely not something I'm willing to consider at $40 (US) just to look at architecture in a church. Especially not when there are so many other churches with stunning architecture for free . . . We felt cheap when we first made the decision, but we feel pretty good about it now.
That night we went caroling with the villagers from Oldhamstocks village (where we were staying). It was great fun! What was so interesting to us was that the other villagers obviously knew who was living in what house, by name. But more interesting was that they knew at some houses which carols to sing based on individual preferences. Some of the recipients shared candy with us, one house passed out Hot Toddies (for the adults) and two others were passing out warm, mulled wine! They were genuinely happy for the carols, and genuinely happy to share their candy, whisky, and wine with us.
I hope everyone has been enjoying the play by play! Tomorrow I'll cover Edinburgh, our first BIG day!
Cheers,
Marc
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