What do you expect when visiting Scotland?(2)

[Father Bill]

How many years are you expecting to take over all that Bill!?

There aren't enough, Jock! Some samples and selections from the list, but Caithness and the Orkneys are on for sure, and likely Iona. The wee pubs? Well there are three meals in a day, aren't there?

[argyle24]

Well, I'm hoping and dreaming of going in August 2017. I hope to meet up with friends who live in Glasgow, I do want to do the touristy landmark-and-castle type activities (The Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, Wallace Monument...), I want to explore the beautiful scenery (Loch Ness, the Fairy Pools, Glencoe...). If I'm able to make the trip, I'll be competing at Cowal and a couple much smaller Games as this trip is meant to be my 'last hurrah' as a competitive dancer before I hang up the ghillies.

[Vlad]

As for me, my priority are mountains!. And national features of course.

[unixken]

Unfortunately I was a victim of a company lay-off at the start of the year, so the first thing to suffer were the funds I'd been setting aside for a trip. With that said, I still hope to get there one day.

A couple years ago I began researching my paternal grandfather's family (he emmigrated to the U.S. with my great grandparents, from Aberdeen, in 1904). Searching online through various geneology and records sites, I was fortunate to come across my grandfather's birth records, my great grandparents' wedding records, several census records for them, and so on. Where an address was given, I'd check it out with Google Earth's Street View. Most of the buildings/addresses have obviously been replaced, but the theater where my great grandparents were married is still there (it was a social hall of some kind before being converted to a theater), and so on. I'd really love to walk through their old neighborhood and take photos for the family.

Beyond that, I'd love to explore, sans a specific time-constrained itinerary. The people... The highlands, the pubs, the castles... Sites of Pictish, Celtic, and Viking importance... Sites of historic note... The tartan mills of the borders... Some whisky distilleries. To explore at my own pace, not to be at any specific place at any specific time.

[John_Carrick]

I was not a frequent visitor to Scotland prior to 2008 and as someone who had spent a lot of time in Ireland since I was a child and had lived here from 2003, my perception was that Scotland was rather similar.

The first time I drove into the Highlands I was completely bowled over by the expansive beauty of Scotland that just goes on and on for hundreds of miles. Ireland has more contained areas of beauty, linked by often long and boring roads. Half an hour North of Glasgow and you are surrounded by lochs and majestic mountains, that just don't seem to end.

However the craic in Irish pubs tends to be better!

[ctbuchanan]

I expect to visit not often seen family, share a dram and accept their friendly harassment at our Colonial ways. I expect to see friends I've made on the net (some on this site) who I also don't see often enough.

But most of all, I expect my eyes to leak when I feel like this....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOO5qRjVFLw

And they always do because every time I return I feel the pride this woman instilled in us every day of her nearly 100 years on this earth. Born in Glasgow in 1914 and moved with my father to the USA after WWII she never once forgot where she came from, and never once let us forget.

[tulloch]

Well, I'm hoping and dreaming of going in August 2017. I hope to meet up with friends who live in Glasgow, I do want to do the touristy landmark-and-castle type activities (The Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, Wallace Monument...), I want to explore the beautiful scenery (Loch Ness, the Fairy Pools, Glencoe...). If I'm able to make the trip, I'll be competing at Cowal and a couple much smaller Games as this trip is meant to be my 'last hurrah' as a competitive dancer before I hang up the ghillies.

Then you'll be there for the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green? I will be there in 2017. Perhaps we do a meet-up. Kiltfitz will be there. I'm sure there will be others from this virtual community.

[neloon]

Liam,
Glad you came to Aberdeenshire - very sensible
Just to clarify terminology

an "attached" home is what we would call in the UK a semi-detached house!

"stone fences" are "dry steen dykes" i.e. uncemented walls built from the stones dug out of the fields during the land improvements of the 18th century. Very hard unmechanized work. Considerable skill is needed to build a good neat dyke.
http://www.scot-image.co.uk/news/drystone-dyker/
Alan

[argyle24]

Then you'll be there for the World Pipe Band Championships on Glasgow Green? I will be there in 2017. Perhaps we do a meet-up. Kiltfitz will be there. I'm sure there will be others from this virtual community.

I'd love to fit it into the plans - I watch the live stream every year!

[SeumasA]

What did I expect? My wife and I like to visit new places and explore without necessarily having a set itinerary. We had several places in mind that we wanted to visit. High on my list were Castle Tioram and Culloden. Other than those few places, we left our time open to see and do whatever caught our fancy. We had quite an adventure and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I was impressed with how friendly everybody was. The one thing that kind of caught me by surprise was how much I felt at home in the areas we visited along the west coast.
We would love to come back for a longer visit. Our plans for the next trip include starting at Lewis (I want to see the stones at Callanish) and island hopping down through the Hebrides, ending up at Mull and Iona.