Hello fellow travelers! The wife and I are planning trip to Ireland and Scotland for this fall, probably late Sept. and/or into October. My brother and his wife will probably join us, so figure a party of 4 adults, mid-50s to early 60s. I will post about Ireland in the appropriate forum, but please make any comments you like. In general, we were thinking 12-14 nights total, flying from Philadelphia to Dublin, and then most likely home from Edinburgh. 5 or 6 days in Ireland, then the ferry over to Holyhead (sp?) followed by the train to London for 2 or 3 days before up to Scotland for maybe 6 days. Understanding that these are beautiful places, the fact is that time and money are limited and we have to make choices. So - Scotland questions -
1. If we spend 2 or 3 nights in Edinburgh, do we really need to also spend time in Glasgow? (Never been to either.)
2. Part of me would hate to be in Scotland and fail to see Loch Ness. If we are based in Edinburgh, are there options to zip up there, look at the lake, have lunch in Inverness, all in a day, or is that trying to do too much? Do we really need to spend a night or two in Inverness? Should I save Loch Ness for a future trip?
3. The ferry ride over from Dublin is something we really want to do. I thought that the combined sail/rail trip to London would make for a less-gruelling travel day than, say, ferry to Holyhead and then a train right up to Edinburgh or Glasgow, or do I have that wrong? Can Dublin ferry to Edinburgh be done without a terrible travel day?
4. In another thread, I see people talking about the trouble of flying home to the U.S. from Edinburgh. Should we rethink our trip such that we end up in London and fly home from Heathrow or Gatwick? Open to ideas.
Lastly - I know it helps if I say what we are interested in and not interested in. No disrespect to anything - just that we have to make choices.
What we like to do: See the physical beauty of a place, particularly nautical and seashore. I like that you can see a lot from a train. We like cities. Some of us are picky/plain eaters, so we do well in larger towns and cities, where you can always get pizza or pub food. We like to sit in a cafe or on a lovely patio with a bottle of wine and watch people and the world go by. Chatting with locals, such as in a pub or the shops. We like wineries. We would enjoy tasting some Scotch (though I think the whole western coast and isles/ Scotch tasting tours deserves a trip of it's own some other time.) We like some degree of touring famous sites. For example, Edinburgh Castle, other castles, perhaps a museum or famous ship here or there. We like dining out, though we are not foodies and don't need fancy or expensive places. Generally, we aren't people who want to rush around checking things off a list.
What we are NOT interested in spending time on: Any kind of sports. Big crowded events or festivals. Haggis. Ancient battlefields. Hiking (walking is fine, strolling around town fine. we are all physically able.)
I'm sorry this got so long, but I'd appreciate any comments. Happy travels to all!
Posted by
Camano Island, WA, usa
1446 posts
Look at www.visitscotland.com to see what travel and tour options are available. This site is multi-leveled with many topics and is easy to use. I think that it might be easier and maybe cheaper to fly between Dublin and Glasgow and or Edinburgh (they are actually fairly close to each other.) Taking a ferry between Ireland and Scotland (maybe in inclement weather) is long trip involving bus and train transfers on each side. Take rain gear that time of year...We were there in Sept/Oct. We drove in England, Wales and Scotland and decided not to do Ireland, because it would use up 2 days of travel just getting there and back. Study maps online and ask what public transportation is available and how long it actually takes. There are Day Trip tours that you can take from Edinburgh and Glasgow.
If you go to Oban Scotland, you can take short trip ferries to West Coast Scottish Isles. Bon Voyage.
Posted by
WI
349 posts
Exciting trip! I'll try to offer a few thoughts on your first two points (I'm not much help on points 3 or 4).
- Glasgow and Edinburgh are totally different cities. To me, Glasgow is more gritty and seems like a place people actually live, whereas Edinburgh has a fairy tale quality. We love both cities but in totally different ways. If I was going to see only one or the other, I'd prefer not to miss Edinburgh (it can be touristy but that's with good reason). Good news is they are very close - 50 minutes or so by train - so you could easily base in Edinburgh and have at least an afternoon/evening in Glasgow. I think it's well worth the effort to see both, even if you choose to focus one one or the other.
- I'm not sure if you have a car, but assuming you do not, the train from Edinburgh to Inverness is at least 3.5 hours one way and there's no public transport direct from Edinburgh to Loch Ness so you'd have to go through Inverness (most likely). If you're dying to see Loch Ness, you could rent a car or hire a guide for the day. For me, Loch Ness is worth a visit - but not at the expense of that much time out of the trip (different story if you had a night or two in Inverness). You could, for example, do a full day trip to Glasgow with much greater ease and enjoyment than you would get out of a long day to Loch Ness from Edinburgh.
No matter what you decide, you'll love Scotland - it's our favorite place to visit!
Posted by
OP
Philadelphia suburbs
59 posts
Kathleen - thank you for that good advice. We specifically do want to take the ferry across, (with Dramamine, speaking for myself anyway), but thank you anyway for the tip. Other than that it sounds like your party did okay with the driving and survived your trip, so that's great. Thanks again.
Posted by
OP
Philadelphia suburbs
59 posts
Steve - thanks a lot for your comments. I really like your idea about staying in Edinburgh and simply taking an hour train ride over to Glasgow for the day. I think that could be the "ticket" right there. As to Loch Ness, I'll have to think about that some more. I don't want to make too much of a gruelling day out of it. Maybe that's something to combine with another trip.
Posted by
Washington DC
27057 posts
You might check to see whether there's a Rabbie's tour from either Edinburgh or Glasgow that sounds interesting. I haven't taken one of their tours, but they draw positive comments here and elsewhere. However, distances are such that any one-day trip to the Highlands will have you stuck in your seat on the bus/van for many, many hours. Rabbies does also offer multi-day trips.
Are you sure you want to spread yourselves over three counties when you have only twelve to fourteen nights in Europe and want to include a full-day transfer between two of those countries? It sounds to me like a trip that's going to be costly when measured on a per-hour-of-sightseeing-time basis. There are opportunities to take ferries from the Scottish mainland to the islands that don't subject you to 8 hours or more of time in transit; they get you to places you cannot fly to.
Posted by
103 posts
You don't want to rush around just ticking things off, but with 12 14 nights spread across Scotland, Ireland and London then that's likely pretty much what you're going to end up doing!;)
12-14 nights is more like 10-12 full days. You'll be very jetlagged the day you arrive and not want to do much - plus perhaps 2 days of travel between Ireland/London/Scotland, then you're looking at actually as little as 8-10 full days available to "sightsee". Realistically, that simply isn't enough for 3 different places.
London is a huge city with a vast range of attractions all over the city - I always work on it taking pretty much an hour to travel between any two points in London, so if you've only got a couple of days you can't see that much. Ireland and Scotland are larger than they look and it can take a long time to travel places, particularly in rural areas and the Highlands. I'm not sure if you're planning to hire a car, but if you're planning to rely on public transport then the journey times often take even longer and indeed it's sparse to non-existant in some rural areas.
In light of all the above I strongly recommend dropping one of your locations. Of course this is a Scotland forum, so I wouldn't drop Scotland!! - I think Scotland and London are probably OK together though for your allotted time.
I'd strongly agree about flying from Ireland to Scotland or London rather than taking the ferry - it just wastes far too much of your very limited time! If you want to travel by ferry you could do as acraven suggests and take a ferry trip to a Scottish island like Mull or Arran.
Consider taking a sleeper train (www.sleeper.scot) between London and Scotland, which means you travelling overnight and leaves the day free to do other things. It can be expensive, but it also saves on a night of hotel accommodation. The sleeper trains also go to Inverness, Aberdeen and ft William. You can also fly from London, there may not be much time saving if you're heading to Glasgow or Edinburgh city centre, but you can also fly to Inverness for the Highlands and that's definitely quicker than the train!
Visiting Glasgow as a day trip from Edinburgh is possible, but it's a much larger city and many of best known sites (such as the Burrell Collection and Kelvingrove) are spread out in neighbourhoods other than city centre. As such you have to build in time to travel between them. If you're on a day trip then you'll find time may be pretty limited to actually see things (and at the very least you need a full day - just an afternoon is not worthwhile).
As such, given that you like cities and your stated interests then I'd suggest you should probably spend at least a night in both Glasgow and Edinburgh to give you time to actually see and do the type of things you mention.
One option could be to split your Scottish time between the two cities and do a 1 or 2 day trips from each. Although they are close they have different public transport connections and offer different opportunities - Edinburgh is not close to the Highlands but they extend farther South in the West of the country, so Glasgow is closer to Highland scenery. From Edinburgh by train you could do places like St Andrews, Dundee (V&A museum), Stirling or Pitlochry/Dunkeld, whilst from Glasgow you could do Stirling, a sail on Loch Lomond (train to Balloch), the famous W Highland line train trip to Ft William/Mallaig, or at a push a trip to the Arran.
A number of tour companies offer day trips from both cities to a variety of places so that could be a good option. Just make sure you're not signing up for one that goes too far (like loch Ness!) and leaves you sitting in a bus all day.
Alternatively you could spend a few days in the cities then pick up a hire car (from the airport!) and drive to the near Highlands for 2-3 days. I'd recommend Highland Perthshire around Pitlochry or the W Highlands around Glencoe cause they're not too far to drive with limited time.
Posted by
OP
Philadelphia suburbs
59 posts
Folks - thanks very much for all of these excellent comments! As a few people have mentioned (and I suspected), we are probably trying to do too much in the time we have for this particular trip. Therefore, after further research and much reading of other people's experiences, we've decided that two trips makes more sense. This fall, we're going to concentrate on Ireland, mostly the republic, but a bit in the north. Next year or the year after, we'll do another trip that focuses on Scotland. Thanks again for sharing all these ideas.