Tia's Thread

Today was the chaos day. We were supposed to pick up our car at 10 and head over to Oban today which was only 1.5 hours drive with a few stops to check out the Linlithgow Palace (birth place of Queen Mary of Scots) and Blackness Castle on the way. Everything is paid for and done. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right?  Wrong!!! We were dropped off at the station at 10 o'clock sharp. But then we found out that while the car parking is on one corner, the booking office is all the way in platform 2. So I opted to wait with our luggage and sent Greg to pick up the keys thinking that it will take him 10 mins max.  One hour later he returns with the news that the insurance we bought along with the car we booked through Expedia won't be accepted here. So we had to buy insurance from them which cost us $500 (initial insurance was $160).  Then we spent another hour calling up Expedia while they were calling Europcar to get one insurance refunded while having the first awful ...

Today's trip started early. We had two giant places to cover and only one day to do so.  Today's agenda - Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace!!! We headed out at early morning to the castle first since it was quite a climb and we needed our energy.  It took us four hours to get through the castle but we did stop to have tea at Queen Anne's Tea Room... This lady doesn't move in empty tummy.  Today is the last weekend of Edinburgh Festival. Which means the Royal Mile was packed end to end. We finally made it to the bus stop to go to Holyrood Palace on the other end of the Royal Mile. We went for the whole shebang even though my feet were crying for mercy.  They don't allow to take pictures within the Palace since it's a working Palace and is the residence of British Monarchy when they visit Scotland. Also, Scotland state related works are done here. However, the Palace is filled with priceless fabrics, artif...