Our Time in Scotland

As part of a 33 day cruise, my husband and I explored Scotland. Our three stops in Scotland were wonderful and very interesting.

Picking up where our trip to England and to Ireland left off…

Our Time in Scotland

As I am writing this up (two weeks after we got home), I went to ask Hubby, “What did we do in Glasgow?”

After he looked it up on his spreadsheet (he was baffled, too) he reminded me that Glasgow was actually about 90 minutes away from the port of Greenock where we docked. A dirty little secret of the cruise industry is many of these ports are many miles outside of the city center, even while the nearest major city is listed as the destination.

We actually did not go to Glasgow, and we had a tour booked with Princess to see the countryside that we skipped.

Why did we skip it?

It was so rainy and foggy you couldn’t see across the port (and we were docked). There was no reason to spend 3-4 hours on a tour bus not seeing anything. Hubby was also concerned about the driving in that weather. Sure, people get used to driving in lousy weather, but accidents and delays do happen.

Instead of that tour, we walked into town, shopped at the local Tesco (along with the entire crew!), wandered the local mall (shopped another Poundland) and visited some local shops in the little downtown.

Kirkwall was very, very pretty. It was way up yonder on an island in Scotland. We saw a number of prehistoric megalithic rock formations (like Stonehenge). Our main stop was the Skara Brae Prehistoric Village which was quite interesting. However, the countryside was the star of the show. Very pastural with many sheep, Shetland ponies, and crops.

Edinburgh was both mine and Hubby’s favorite stop in the UK.

When originally planning this trip we had considered going to spend our time between cruises (about 12 days) in Edinburgh. I am convinced it would have been a great time! We may go back someday as we enjoyed it that much.

The one issue with Edinburgh is stairs. A million-trillion stairs. And if not stairs, there are steep sidewalks to climb.

We did a walking/food tour and the first 1.5 miles was stairs, stairs, and more stairs.

I have an issue with my left knee where, while I was chasing Max about 15 years ago, I fell and the ligaments surrounding the knee blew up. I never rehabbed it, and the ligaments surrounding the knee now give me troubles.

I brought a cane for support, but those stairs… wow.

That was an excellent sticky toffee pudding on our food tour.

We did get to see a lot of the city on the walking tour portion of the tour but the cab ride in to the city was about an hour. The cab ride back was only about 30 minutes, but I did not know that and did not want to miss the boat. We could have spent some more time in the city if we had realized, but my left leg was throbbing and so going back was not a horrible idea.

Ironically? After resting my leg for two days, my leg felt fine. It has been several months now and I am happy to report I have not used my cane since. My knee feels great!

No, I am not going to buy a stair-stepper, but wow was that an unexpected, pleasant result of a million-trillion stairs.

The time spent in Edinburgh was marvelous and where I have the least amount of photos from because we enjoyed ourselves too much to take the time to take photographs! It is a place we would definitely like to return to.

The last stop on the first cruise was La Harve France. It was also two day later, the first stop on our back-to-back cruise.

Instead of visiting relatives (shhhh) we went to Harfleur for market day. Wow was that fantastic!

We took an Uber in to the town and spent some time shopping the stalls. We bought honey for our dinner tablemates (she was/is a beekeeper), some wine for the transatlantic crossing, some candies and local foods, and then had a wonderful lunch at a local restaurant.

Hubby also bought Calvados for us, and one for our next door neighbors (who are fabulous people). He spent quite a bit of time in the liquor store as it was everywhere from 1-50 years!

I loved the drive as I very much like northern France and Normandy. Huh. I can’t believe I do not have a Normandy write-up. For all the times we have been to France (Hubby’s extended family lives there), I only have one Paris write-up. Not good.

On our way back we also took an Uber. For the most part Uber was a great, less expensive way to get around in the UK and Northern Europe this trip.

When we went back to Southampton I did not bother to get off. No reason to. Hubby went in, did a little H&BA shopping and was back on the ship by noon.

We were then on our way home.

The transatlantic crossing was rather eventful. As I mentioned earlier the ship had some issues. But, we were also impacted by Hurricane Kirk. Our next two stops after a stop in La Harve were in northern Spain, but Kirk was headed that way to we had to abort. We ended up back in Cohn/Cork which was a sucky port, but better than battling a hurricane on the open sea.

After that, we took a slow boat ride to Madeira.

What a charming place! We were there on a Sunday and much of the city was closed, but we still got to see some of the sights, try the famous Madeira wine (blech), and enjoy walking about (I saw my first banana tree!) and have an exceptional lunch.

After six days at sea, we made land in St Thomas. We had just been there, Antigua, and Grand Cayman (our three Caribbean stops) in December. After experiencing freezing cold Europe I swear we were going to melt when we got off the ship. I was smart enough to pack a ripskirt and had UV 50 shirts, so I was ok, but wow was it warm.

I did not bother to get off in Grand Cayman. It is a rich British banking town, I’ve been there many times, and it is a tender port. Hubby decided to go in and he was back in an hour. Except for the turtle farm, and beaches, there isn’t much in Grand Cayman besides expensive shopping.

The ship we were on, the Regal Princess, as it had major issues while we were on board. We smelled the electrical fire from our balcony while on the first cruise (we did a back-to-back with the second cruise being a transatlantic), and all the power went out when we were leaving Grand Cayman on our way to Galveston. The ship (after we got off in Galveston) then cancelled the next three cruises while they worked to repair their generators and electrical. Yikes.

After the power outage (as I mentioned above), we spent the next two days sailing with our fingers crossed hoping to get in to Galveston. We made it, disembarkation was a breeze, and we drove home.

After finally going to the UK I will say that outside of Edinburgh the chance of my going back is nil. The weather played a big factor and that can change, and I want to say, “never say never” but a return for us is most probably never.

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