Scotland: Half City, Half Mountains, One Whole Rob

4 Days in Edinburgh: Fringe Festival, Scotch Tasting, and Morning Jaunts up Arthur’s Seat

First Day: Glenkichie Scotch Tasting, Edinburgh Castle Tour, The Witchery Restaurant

Kait, her dad, and I arrived in Edinburgh the morning after the Notre Dame football game on a stupid early flight that had us leaving our cozy hotel beds before 4am. We were whisked up and taken straight to a scotch tasting tour at the Glenkichie Distillery about 30 minutes outside of Edinburgh. Kait’s dad hired a Scottish fella named Graham to be our fixer/transport for the three days we were scheduled to be in Edinburgh. He was charming, insightful, and had a proper Scottish sense of humor to go with his accent. He dropped us at the Glenkichie distillery around lunch time.

The distillery tour was well-designed and visually appealing. Our tour guide was a skilled storyteller who relayed the origins of the distillery, and the scotch was (even though I’m not a huge fan) pretty damn tasty. Graham drove us back to Edinburgh and gave us some advice around checking out the Edinburgh Castle. After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we hit the streets and headed for the castle. Our hotel was in a prime location, smack in the middle of the “Oldtown” and just off the Royal Mile. The royal mile was a heavily trafficked area closed off for pedestrians and filled with street performers. The streets were cobblestone and Scotch and wool stores were plentiful along with the usual tourist memorabilia shops you find on such streets. The walk to the Edinburgh Castle took 15 minutes from our hotel. We enjoyed performances by buskers along the way-ranging from magic to playing with fire to acrobatic feats of strength. The castle sits on a natural protrusion in the middle of the city and made sense as the perfect location to fend off any invaders for hundreds of years. It’s easy to spot from anywhere I walked in Edinburgh and provides spectacular views of the city. Climbing to the top provided a good way to get our bearings on the first day and spot other parts of the city that appeared worth visiting.

In our time at the castle we drank some tea, ate some scones with clotted cream, and learned a little bit about the story of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. We managed to sneak a peek at the Crown Jewels which were also housed in there. The view from Edinburgh Castle of the surrounding city is prime. After our castle visit Kait’s dad snagged us a reservation at one of the neatest restaurants in Edinburgh called the Witchery. The entrance to the restaurant was set back in a narrow stone alleyway that was lined with vines and beautiful flowers. Per their website this is the description “Nestled within a sixteenth-century merchant’s house, The Witchery stands as a testament to Edinburgh’s rich heritage and offers the city’s most exceptional and atmospheric dining destination”. The website also goes on to describe the restaurant’s “rich baroque décor” and “ancient oak paneling and tapestries”.

To be clear, the meal was delicious, the space was aesthetically spectacular, and I am in no way complaining. In my limited vocabulary the decor would be described as “refined mediaeval”. The restaurant menu listed all the celebrities who were frequent or long-time diners, including the most famous inhabitant of Edinburgh: J.K. Rowling. I had some super tasty venison medallions and everyone enjoyed their meals thoroughly. We strolled home form our early dinner and took in some of the performances from the many buskers who were there for the month-long art and theater festival known as the Fringe Festival.

Second Day: Clydeside Scotch Tour, Rosslyn Chapel, Hiking Arthur’s seat, and Six Chick Flicks

Day two started similarly, with Graham picking us up and driving us over to a Scotch tour at the Clydeside distillery, a newer one close to downtown Glasgow. The distillery was less fancy than the first but did a really good job of storytelling through cartoons and animations. It set the scene of what distilling alcohol was like in the 1700-1800s and provided a proper history of the building leading up to today. We tasted a few scotches for breakfast ~yum~ and made small talk with the others around us.

Following the tour, Graham picked us up and took us over to the Rosslyn Chapel, a historic chapel made famous by the Tom Hanks’ blockbuster Angels and Demons. The tour guide told a magnificent story about the history of the chapel and how it had fell into disrepair until the movie made it a popular place to visit. Following the story we had some tea and scones (when in Rome) and Kaitlin and I dressed up in period clothing for shits n gigs.Graham then picked us up and drove us back to Edinburgh to hike up to Arthur’s seat, a high point about 800 feet above Scotland that provides a popular hiking/running location for people living in Edinburgh.

Side note: I ran Arthur’s seat no fewer than 5 times in our 4ish days in Edinburgh and I loved every second of it. I’m always in love with city centers that have ample green space for recreation in the middle of them and this one was no different. Add some elevation into the mix and my heart melts <3.

We arrived to Arthur’s seat around lunch, hiked up and down it in a bit under an hour, and then came back to our hotel. I had already run it that morning but was happy to be back. We snapped a few pictures up top, admired the views, and descended. That night we got something simple to eat and decided to walk around to see what shows were left still running from the Fringe Festival. We asked about a few that were already sold out or were no longer running until we eventually settled on a show called Six Chick Flicks created by a female duo from the US. Purchasing this ticket was hands down the best money we spent all trip, if not all year. The two performers flawlessly spoofed and acted out a selection of six chick flicks, some timeless, or insanely popular (Dirty Dancing, Titanic, Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde) and others less well known (Beaches?) into a coherent, sarcastic, and cutting comedy skit. They acted out the absurdities of each movies plot and pointed out features of each movie that indicated the director could have only been a man. My abs hurt from laughing and face was sore from smiling, I cried no fewer than two times.

Third Day: Harry Potter Tours and Fringe Festival Finale

Our third day in Scotland started with a Harry Potter walking tour which was one of my favorite parts of the entire trip. I grew up in the prime Harry Potter release window and spent three Harry Potter movies in a row rotating birthday parties with my good buddy Jack Kennedy growing up. The release dates were often 18 months apart which lined up perfectly with our May and November birthdays. The Harry Potter tours in Edinburgh are free and based off of donations like many of the free walking tours in Europe, a model which I have always loved and find to be a public treasure. During the tour we walked through graveyards that were reminiscent of the climax scene form the Goblet of Fire. We also visited headstones including one infamous Tom Riddle’s name as well as the writer who was the inspiration for Professor Mcgonical. There was a private school right next to the graveyard with four houses inside of it each with their own crest which inspired the creation of the houses at Hogwarts.

Our guide was a clever, self-effacing, and highly enjoyable host who gave us quiz questions and assigned our houses along the way. The tour lasted between 1-2 hours and left me grinning stupidly ear to ear. Behind the Six Chick Flicks performance, this was my next favorite part of the trip that left me full of pure and unbridled joy. To put it simply, it left me feeling like a kid once again.

Later that day Kaitlin and her dad left to head to St. Andrew’s links course while I decided to stay in Edinburgh and work on a special 70th birthday post for my father. That night I went downtown to try and catch any last shows from the Fringe Festival and was recommended to watch a male a capella group named the Magnets. All five were highly talented and the show was well worth the 20 bucks. The two performers who put down the base and the beat were quite impressive. They performed a rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody that was the neatest version of it I have ever witnessed. I talked to them after the show and found out that one of their members had just joined them in the past year. He said he was watching them from the seats at last years Fringe Festival just as I was and now was performing with guys he once admired-talk about perspective change!

3 Days in Aviemore and Cairngorms National Park Without a Car

Day One: Cairngorm Peak Loop

The next day we bid farewell to Kaitlin’s dad and caught a 3 hour train to Aviemore, an outdoorsy town surrounded by Cairngorms National Park. By the looks of it, I knew we were in the right place when we first arrived. The downtown had a plethora of outdoors stores to choose from and there was a trail that started literally from the back of our hotel. We arrived a bit before lunch and dropped our stuff at the hotel. We then caught a bus straight out to Cairngorm mountain which turned out to be a ski resort. Initially I was a bit disappointed at this realization. As my run progressed, it started to get more and more wild and feel less like a ski resort. The first 2 miles were relentlessly steep and wasted no time in climbing nearly 2,000 feet. I covered the steep climb in about 34 minutes and took a moment to be proud of just how much my ability to run uphill had improved in one year’s time. Once on top of Cairngorm peak, the trail followed a ridge and opened up to some stellar views that left any thoughts of ski resorts far out of my mind. The scenery felt truly wild, and I stopped at many points along the run to take pictures of the stuning landscape. The weather was surprisingly nice for Scotland and I finished the 9 mile loop in a bit under two hours. Kaitlin and I met up at the cafe near the base of the resort and headed home on the last public bus into town to get some pizza and call it a night.

Day 2: Braeriach Peak Via Coylumbridge and Running Store Chats

Planning long runs in a foreign country can be a bit nerve-wracking. Between the transportation to get there, reconciling routes or data, and the underlying anxiety that a long run already presents, it can feel stressful. We woke up and caught the first bus to our trailhead which got us there around 9am. The trail started in a town southeast of Aviemore named Coylumbridge. From Coylumbridge, we would run dead south. I was hoping to top out at a peak named Braeriach after around 8-9 miles and then turn around and come down. Kaitlin was joining for her long run and planned to do a shorter out and back along the same route. We started running a bit before 10 and were met with pristine (for Scotland) and mostly sunny weather along the route. The route also followed a river for the first 5ish which made for ample water available to filter. After about 5 miles of paralleling the river and 1100 feet of gain, the route cut to the right and started climbing more steeply. Around 7 miles in I had to navigate a pretty slow-moving and ankle-destroying boulder field. That segment climbed around 1100 feet in a mile (think: steeeeeep).

Once I got through the boulder field the single track trails re-emerged. I was treated to some nice flowy running until a short descent of a few hundred feet followed by my last proper climb up to Braeriach Peak. There were a few backpackers along the way but I had the route largely to myself. After around two hours of running I topped out at 4,200 feet on Braeriach and called it a day. The descent was quite sporty. I had two separate fifteen-minute pushes scheduled for my training. One of the intervals I chose to do close to the boulder field portion of the route to practice my technical descending. The other I spaced out a bit and waited for the flatter part of the trail at the end to work on pushing some speed on tired legs. By the time I reached our starting point 3 hours and 18 miles later, I was sufficiently wrecked. I spotted Kaitlin reading a book in the shade of a tree and collapsed on the ground next to her, happy with my effort and the views of the day. We headed back into town and replenished our stomachs with a hearty Shepard’s pie at an old hotel with some neat architecture. That evening, we dropped in at one of the local outdoor stores and I struck up a convo with one of their employees who said he had run UTMB multiple times. Kaitlin is well prepared for these types of situations at this point in our relationship, and never goes into an outdoors store without a book in hand. Two hours of chatting and a few pairs of shoes tried on later, we walked out and retired to our hotel.

Day 3: Train to Inverness, American Male Wins UTMB, More Running Store Chats

For day three in Aviemore we slept in and then caught the train north to check out Inverness. Inverness is prime Loch Ness Monster tourist territory, but we decided to just check out the city for the day instead. The biggest/most competitive ultra distance trail race in the world (Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc or UTMB for short) was set to finish that day around lunch. The race had started the night before at dinner time and top males were expected to come in around 20 hours. I woke Kaitlin up that morning excited that Zach Miller (an American male!) was leading the race 14 hours in. No American male had every won the race in its 20 years of existing although many of our best runners had tried.

Jim Walmsley (another American!) had just dropped to third place and I feared that he would slowly fade as he had in past years. He would have to wait another year to take the win he had tried five other times in vain for. Once in Inverness, we found a Cafe with good wifi to have brunch to allow me to watch the finish of UTMB. In the time it took for us to travel to Inverness and find a place to eat, Jim Walmsley had put in an EPIC surge to fight off a French runner that caught him and then proceeded to close a 16 minute lead that Zach Miller held on him. He finished the race in the fastest time ever and became the first American male to win UTMB which may or may not have brought me to tears and a few audible whoops in the middle of this Scottish cafe.

After the race we wandered into a running store (do you see a theme here?). I struck up a conversation with one of the employees about trail running while trying on some shoes that stores don’t often carry in the US. Kait, recognizing the situation, whipped out her book and prepared for the worst. Cam (the friendly shoes store employee) was new to ultrarunning but had all the stoke in the world for his newfound endeavor and impressed the hell out of me with his knowledge. After chatting about racing, nutrition, building distances, and other training ideas he decided to put UTMB on the screen in the store. We proceeded to watch the finish of the first female racer, the legendary Courtney Dauwalter, who had just closed out a jawdropping season in which she won three grueling 100 mile races in a 3 month span and set course records at two of the three races (the only record she failed to break was already her own). Two hours later, we walked out (sorry Kait). We headed back to Aviemore around dinner time and packed up for our departure home the next day. The same train that brought us into Aviemore from Edinburgh took us home and we called it a trip. We never found the elusive and ever adorable scottish highland cow (google it), but Scotland proved to be a great time. The people were warm, scenery amazing, and performers talented. The public transport was smooth and got us right up to the trails and back without a problem. I’m still not entirely sure what haggis are, but I ate some and it would seem I’m still alive.