I’m getting really excited about my upcoming British Isles tours. In one and a half weeks, the madness games begin. First up in July is my wife’s friend from uni is coming to do her own tour of the British Isles. She arrives on a Thursday and will be switching planes here in Glasgow for a weekend trip to Ireland. We’ll be centering ourselves around Belfast on the recommendation of some colleagues here. I’ve planned two separate day trips, one to Giant’s Causeway and another to Newgrange and Knowth. We return to Glasgow late on Monday. Then, our friend takes a trip to England for a few days in the week and returns for the weekend (while my wife and I work). The second weekend of July, we’ll be traveling to see a few castles (possibilities include Scone, Stirling, and Glamis). Then, our first visitor leaves on the following Monday.
Our second set of visitors is my wife’s mother and youngest sister. They arrive on the Friday of that same week (giving us a few days to finish off work, clean up, and tie up any loose ends). It also happens that our anniversary (has it only been four years??) falls between these two visits, so I hope to do something for that in the in-between time. Their first weekend will be a little tamer than our first visitor’s, as we’ll be staying around Glasgow for that weekend. However, once the weekend’s over, we’re heading up north into the Scottish Highlands. We’ll spend a night in Carbisdale Castle, followed by a run through Loch Ness, Skye, Oban (with a photo stop at Castle Stalker), Iona, and Loch Lomond before returning to Glasgow a few days later. We’ll spend the weekend recovering from that run, but it won’t last long.
Part three of our month will be a raid into English territory (finally). We’ll first make a run to London through the eastern part of England, passing through Leeds and Nottingham to see Fountains Abbey, Herriot country, and Nottingham Castle (with the Sherwood Forest). After a few days in London, we’ll begin our journey back through the western part of England (sorry, no Wales this trip), passing through Stonehenge, Avebury, Bath, Manchester, Carlisle (and the Lake District), Hadrian’s Wall, and possibly Edinburgh before returning to Glasgow. With July over, our visitors will return to the New World and leave us to hibernate in the quickly growing night that is winter in the north (we’ll lose two hours of daylight between now and the time they leave in August).
Needless to say, I’ll be very sparse in July.
