Not sure really, what do you expect to see on Muck? Or Rum or Eigg. These are small islands in the Scottish Western Isles. We were originally supposed to visit Isle of Skye, but it was cancelled as the port was having major rework done. Instead a cruise by M, R and E - not much to see as you can tell by the pictures.
Fog bound, ships horn sounding mournfully through the night. Arrived in Lerwick in the Shetlands - no ponies on show.
We are in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands just off the north coast of Scotland. Bit easier today as we are docked & no immigration to deal with. Small town with a sprinkling of shops, mostly touristy with hand knitted jumpers at £150 a pop. We wandered about town, took in a museum that revealed to us that this was an important place 5000 BC with developed buildings & settlements. Scara Brae is nearby. This was before Stonehenge was built.
This is a garden building of am important island dignatory - it is built from the recovered ballast from a pirate ship.
Nice limo to the ship, beemer M series, boarding went OK, no problems with the booze and fairly speedy. Nice spacious cabin in a peaceful part of town.
Arrived in Edinburgh under the Forth rail bridge, weather great despite the rainy forecast. However the Spooner travel agency had blips.
1. No Ubers to take us to the top of the Royal Mile (planned to avoid the steep slog up to the top of RM)
2. Backup plan to walk to the nearby ScotRail station approx 11 min walk backfired because halfway there we had to ascend 100 steep steps. Mrs S not best pleased. However train was great, £3.95 return. Not great for everyone, there was a couple of Yanks from the boat on the station confused about where to board for Edinburgh, I offered to help & noticed their ticket was for Inverkeithing - is that not Edinboro?
We're flying from Heathrow to Amsterdam, where we spend a couple of days before going to Rotterdam to pick up our Holland America cruise around the UK, then up to the Arctic circle. First step,p advance book the Uber to Heathrow - not bad, got a 3am pickup for £78. Come 4pm I got an email saying the credit card was out of date & I had until 1am to update it. I did so straight away. At 1:05am got an email saying cab cancelled. Rebooked perfectly well with the credit card that was on the app except now £88. Although the guidance is to arrive 3hr before departure for international flights, the bag drop didn't open until 2 hours before departure. Everything else great, check in, security, duty free (£13 litre of Tanqueray) and flight on time. Using the new EES at Schiphol not so good, didn't seem to recognise my fingerprints at all. I hear they abandoned using it next day because of the problems it was causing.
Picked up by cab at the airport & taken to the Arena hotel in East Amsterdam. It's an old 1800's building that used to be an orphanage, pretty apt as Lin & I are both orphans now. Nice place on the edge of a lovely park. Hotel restaurant & patio overlooked the park.
Went to plan, relaxing couple of days wandering around sitting in cafes watching the world. Dutch youth aren't too intelligent - watched a bunch of them on a park bench with fast food, drinks & drugs. Finished by leaving junk all over the floor. They couldn't work out that the metal thing next to the bench was a receptacle for putting rubbish in!
Amsterdam, of course! I've got a blue toothbrush, Lin's got a pink.... Anyone remember Max? We are off on a round Britain, Norway up to the Arctic circle cruise, that starts in Rotterdam. Packing for a month, Lin's got it down to one 15 kilo and one 16 kilo case. I'm thinking of renting out for a fee to pack for others - any takers.
Weather is is still baking here in London, around 30 Celsius. Looking forward to the Arctic even though it's 24 hour daylight. Last time up there it was mid December - 24 hour night.
Just been to a family do up in March, in the garden all day with a big bunch of 3 year olds, pretty exhausting. We are not going to recover - cab picks us up at 3am.
