After last year's travels, final year has condemned me to become a sedentary working hermit, whose natural habitat is the library. Now, my feet were getting very itchy, so I decided I needed a change of scenery; I jumped on a train and off I was to Scotland!
A charming 5 hour journey later, I arrived in Edinburgh. The dark eerie buildings on the colourful evening sky (we are talking 3pm here) enchanted me the minute I got there. Edinburgh is beautiful from all its angles, but the absolute highlight is the view from Arthur's seat, a 822 ft extinct volcano in the middle of the city! There was loads to visit in the centre, such as the National Museum of Scotland with its curiosities, the Museum of Childhood, the Castle of course.
The view from Arthur's Seat
I also had the delight to see Tian Tian and Yang Guang, the two Giant Pandas who were new to Edinburgh, just like me. They have become such an attraction that we had to book a visiting slot online! What celebrities! The other highlight of Edinburgh Zoo was the penguin parade. A few years ago, the zoo keepers had accidentally left the door to the penguin enclosure open (in my opinion such inadvertence is not acceptable in a zoo!) and a few penguins had then decided to take a walk through the zoo before diligently returning to their enclosure. Today, the zoo keepers organise it, forming a sort of moving path with the visitors. The slightly clumsy humanoid walk of the penguins is just endearing!
Then, off I was to the lovely countryside. All you need is a half decent map, a small car for the small roads and a warm set of clothes! We just chose to wander off to random places, as in West Scotland, no matter where you go, you are almost certain to find beautiful scenery. That's my kind of place!
My personal recommendation is to take the east road of Loch Ness, which was much more exciting than the west road, which runs along the lake. We suddenly ended up in a winter wonderland, with a snowy island in the middle of another loch. Then down to Foyers. (which was originally chosen as destination for lunch for its resemblance to my name, as my original plan was to claim the place!) A huge waterfall can be admired there and less tourists come here, but then again, it was January, so there weren't many people anywhere!
The journey ended on a great culinary note, with the best fish and chips in Britain in a little harbour town in Fife called Anstruther. It was a perfect goodbye, although it's probably just an 'au revoir!'.
