Today we head north to Aberdeen and the eastern shoreline. The real purpose of this part of the trip is a bit of investigation. Our plan is to retire in either France or Spain (Carcassonne is currently the leading contender) and spend most of our time there, but when July and and the tourists, we are looking for somewhere a bit more remote but yet still accessible by train. This leads us to Scottish Coast. Ideally would be to find a lovey village like the one in Doc Martin. Our search will take us to several small villages along the coast, but more on that later.
As for now, our train is at 9:30, allowing us a leisure final breakfast in the Old Waverly and a simple walk across the street to catch our train.
The train ride was very pleasant, car so the seats were and not many other passengers, except the couple from Sydney Australia on a trip. I did some blogging on the train, Jerry read up on the places yet to visit. There tea and coffee, but water cost extra, dont ask me why but it
did. It was about a two- and hour trip mostly along the coast, and yes passed the famous St. Andrews Golf Course.
Yes, golfing is huge here, the green space is either a pasture or a golf course, there are tons of them. One we passed was along the edge of the North Sea. I would end up hitting every ball in to the ocean.
Daylight, it is always daylight. At 11:00 pm it is as light here as it would be at 9:00 pm in the summer back home. I did not realize that we were that far north, almost like the places that have endless days.
We arrived in Aberdeen and then it was off to get the car. Yes, another adventure driving on the other side. We had to go to the airport to pick up the car. The guy at the front desk was very helpful and not only gave us an extr4a driver at no charge (Yes, Jerry might attempt to drive, then he will see it isnt that easy to stay away from the left edge) he also advised the pre paying the fuel was the
better option based on where we were returning the car. He even gave us a restaurant which turned out to be a life saver.
We are just at the half way point of the trip, meaning it is time for laundry. Part of the planning is Jerry doing the research to find a place that does laundry by the pound and dry cleaning. If we didnt do this, we would have another suitcase to lug around. Before laundry was a stop at a wine shop to get our stock for the next 5 days. The prices here are so to the States. Good Bordeaux for under 20 pounds. Next up was the laundry service. We got a bit turned around on the way there, but did manage to find it fairly easily, even a parking spot (without parallel parking, I dont even want to try that on the other side) directly in front of the cleaners. Finally, we arrived at the hotel.
There is a ton of construction happening at the Union Terrace Gardens directly across from our hotel, and we parked in a construction zone just so I could go check in.
Good news, parking for the hotel was directly behind down a small alley and the spaces were not your typical tiny car only. This works out great because we have a VW Passat and it is a little larger than what we normally rent and the trunk is huge, all of our luggage fits in it.
I checked in we parked the car, and headed up to the of steps and elevator. Again, our room is way in a corner, nice view, but a bit of a hike and the room is fairly small for a Deluxe Double (lost in translation I guess). After a quick unpack of the hanging items we were in search of lunch. Aberdeen was very difficult to find places to eat when we were planning. We did have reservations but as you will see plans changed constantly. After we fully checked in and unpacked, we were off for a late lunch and quick tour of the city center. Lunch was to be at Old Blackfraris at the beginning of our walking tour, unfortunately earlier in the week they us saying they had to close because their kitchen stopped working.
