Tag: Scotland

North to Scotland – 2026 – Day 3 – “Goodbye England”, “Hello Scotland”….

Published on by 2jsworldofadventure2 Comments

Yesterday evening we took an Uber to The Crows Nest …a Greene King Pub, with good old fashioned ‘pub grub’. We didn’t want a posh restaurant just some decent food….thats what we got…Dad had hunters chicken, John had gammon steak, pineapple & egg & chips. I had 3 Cumberland sausages, mash, peas, gravy and a Yorkshire pudding …we each had a soft drink and the bill was less than £35…. Half the price of the night before and more tasty….a great choice.

Day 3 – time to leave Newcastle and head for Scotland

John walked up to the station and brought back 3 bacon butties which we had in our room with coffee. Heading down to reception to book out we meet a delightful receptionist. When he heard how old my Dad was he rushed across to shake his hand and chatted to him while John and I went to fetch the car. The Leonardo Hotel discounts your car parking which was a very pleasant surprise…if you stay longer than 2 nights it would be cheaper to buy a week’s parking.

Returning to the hotel the lovely receptionist assisted us with our bags and then gifted us some wonderful fruit jelly pastilles, which he said he and his wife enjoyed on their trips to Scotland….he was right we did enjoy his kindness and the jelly pastilles……what a kind gentleman….I must say we would definitely stay there again….we were made to feel very welcome and the Northern Kindness shone through.

We had a good steady trip up the A1… until we saw……

We crossed into Scotland and headed for South Queenferry a favourite haunt of ours. Filling with petrol at a garage with a Marks & Spencer’s we picked up sandwiches and sausage rolls for the boys and a wrap with yoghurt for myself. …we sat in the carpark almost beneath The Forth Bridge eating our lunch. I fetched a couple of coffees from the Forth Bridge cafe & Bistro….we spent an enjoyable hour watching the world go by…trains, boats, ferry’s etc…

We headed on to our hotel in Falkirk. It’s not the Premier Lodge’s fault that their lodge is in the middle of massive roadworks at the moment. We are here for 4 nights so that John can go to Edinburgh and Glasgow stations, while Dad and I see the tourist sights….so we wanted somewhere cheap and cheerful….. that is exactly what we got …we were greeted by two delightful receptionist who went beyond the norm to give us information and to make us welcome. A lift deposited us on the 2nd floor. The rooms have double beds ( we’re used to kingsize so we will be very snug!), a kettle and coffee and a hanging area, a tv, desk and en-suite. Everything we need…there are 2 communal microwaves and fridges near the reception…..so all good…basic but clean and ok for what we need.

We’ll need to negotiate the road works again tonight to find somewhere to eat….more about that tomorrow.

Getting ready for a road trip around Scotland

Published on by 2jsworldofadventure1 Comment

THE PLANNING STAGE

We are shortly off on another road tip around Scotland. The itinerary and planning document is below…. It is all for 2 double rooms, because we are lucky enough to be joined by my father .. so if its just one or two of you its half the price…. most of the bookings are with Booking.com although one apartment is with Airbnb. With most hotels you have the option of adding breakfast at the booking stage…. we normally don’t because Dad likes a double bed but doesn’t want 2 breakfasts!! so we pay at the hotel for the breakfasts as and when we want them.

The airb&b is a ground floor apartment in Inverness. We usually stay at The Royal Highlander, which is next to the station. But when planning this trip they were fully booked and even if I’d changed our dates around I wasn’t keen to pay their hugely increased prices.

In Carlisle we are staying in an apartment because I really cant face once again staying in the Carlisle Station Hotel, Sure Hotel Collection by BW…. The last time was just a step too far for me. It has always been quirky but last time was more surreal than usual……We’ve had over the years:- crashing down or stuck open sash windows, toilets which fill up and flood, toilets which don’t flush, a step in the middle of a bathroom floor etc….but last time the shower wouldn’t turn off, so I left it running got dressed and waited until John came back from fetching bacon butties for breakfast. John gave it a tug and the knob came off in his hand as it covered us both and the bathroom in spurting out water in all directions. John managed to reconnect the knob which sent the water thundering back into the bath-tub direction but we still couldn’t get it to stop…….we were of course fully dressed and looking like drowned rats…. The manager did apologies profusely for it and assured us ‘the next time we visit our room will be half price’….ummmmm no thank you…eventually we came to an agreement that he would discount our room so we ended only paying for one night instead of two……which was acceptable to us….but the thought of going through the usual drama in the only decent hotel within walking distance to the station was too much for me on this trip so it is a lovely sounding apartment instead.

DAYPLACECOST
1Leonardo Hotel
Scotswood Road, Newcastle NE1 4AD
2 nights x  2 Superior King double room Booking.com		£286.74
3Premier  Lodge
Westmains  Road Grangemouth Falkirk FK3 8YE
4 nights x 2 Double Rooms Booking.com		£540
74 nights Airbnb 2 Crown Circus Braevellie Apartment No 1 Highland Council, Inverness IV2 3NQ… contact Claire  for check in details.£920
11Muthu Queens Hotel
Corran Esplanade Oban PA34  5AG
2 nights x 2 Standard Double rooms Booking.com		£357
13Western House Hotel at Ayre Racecourse
66 Craigie Road Ayr KA8 0HA
1 night x 2 Double in Courtyard Buildings. Booking.com		£187.12
14Carlisle City Centre The Foreman’s Residence
9 Earl Street The Foreman’s Residence Carlisle CA1 1DP
2 night x 2 double ensuite bedroomed apartment. Booking.com		£232.20
16Steeton Hall Hotel & Restaurant
Station Road, Steeton BD20 6RY
2 nights x 2 Deluxe King Double breakfast included. Booking.com		£277.20
18Home
TOTAL COST£2800.26

Pause in posting about China…

Published on by 2jsworldofadventure3 Comments

Sorry for not continuing going through our “ Want to do and see” in China. We seem to have hit a brick wall with DialAFlight…. Having had many years great service from Rosie Price and thoroughly recommending her to every one….since she has left the company we haven’t had the same level of service at all….Rosie would facilitate our desired itinerary by booking through an on the ground agent. When they couldn’t match price the hotels Rosie would book the hotels through booking.com. She would also always give us a price regardless of whether it was higher than we predicted or not…..BUT having waited 3 weeks for a quote on our itinerary our response was “Sorry we can’t help you” …..grrrrr…so now I’ve put it with a local independent travel agent to see what they can do for us…then if they can’t help we’ll start the long hard slog of contacting a variety of other agents and putting the trip out to tender……Not ideal….but these things happen…. SO I’ve stopped planing until we know we can actually find a company to manage it for us…as it’s our first time in China we don’t really want to go completely solo for many reasons…not least because we don’t want to miss out on sights, struggle to buy train tickets and get on the right train etc, etc….

However we have a 3 week trip around Scotland planned for May…so I’ll post the planning document in the near future…