harrypotter

The Ultimate Scottish Road Trip

With the help of a Lonely Planet Guide, my friend Alex and I planned the Ultimate Scottish road trip over an amazing coffee at my favourite cafe one afternoon in Cambridge.

I was already going to be in Edinburgh for work. So our trip began from the Scottish capital, and this is the route we took:

Edinburgh -> St Andrews -> Perth -> Glencoe -> Fort William (Ben Nevis) -> Oban -> Isle of Barra -> Eriskay -> South Uist -> Isle Benbecula -> North Uist -> Isle of Berneray -> Isle of Harris -> Isle of Skye -> Glenfinnan Viaduct -> England (around Penrith) -> Cambridge

Click here to see the route on a map.

We wanted to make the most of Scotland’s “wild camping”, so we pitched our tent whilst on the Outer Hebrides. We stayed on a campsite whenever we were on mainland Scotland. The network coverage is close to non-existent on the Outer Hebrides, so be prepared and don’t rely on Google Maps on your smart phone. Luckily, my friend Alex decided to go “old school” and brought an actual detailed map of Scotland which also had campsites labelled (just in case we couldn’t find anywhere “wild”).

My favourite place that we pitched up was on the Isle of Berneray which over looked a beautiful beach with white sand and turquoise water. We had an amazing sunset and sunrise here also – the epitome of wild camping in Scotland.

In terms of logistics: we bought all our ferry tickets on the day. However, in preparation we had taken notes of the times of the ferry departures, but thought we should just go with the flow and see how we felt like on the day. If we were in a spectacular place, we didn’t want to leave in a hurry. Buying ferry tickets on the day didn’t change the price and for us it worked out well. We managed to get on all the ferries that we wanted to, although the ferry from the Isle of Harris to the Isle of Skye was a close call, we almost didn’t get on because nearly all the spots were all pre-sold. But luckily we had gotten to the port early enough where they allowed a few spontaneous cars on…

If you love seals: make sure you go to Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye. For only a fiver, you get to go out on a small boat and see the seals – there were so many of them! I’m a little in love with these creatures as you can tell from the number of shots I took…

Climbing Ben Nevis was an absolute delight. For those of you who aren’t from the UK, it Scotland’s highest mountain standing at 1344m. It was a relatively easy climb, but be sure to bring walking poles for the way down (your knees will thank you!). It took us about 3.5hrs to go up and only 2hrs or so to come down. We hiked at a very leisurely pace, where we stopped quite often for photo opportunities.

All I can say is that I definitely recommend road tripping through Scotland. I’ll leave you to decide while you browse through some of the shots I captured while on this epic experience. Ultimate road trips are “ultimate” because of the amazing things you get to see and experience as well as the person/people you get to do this with – so make sure your buddy is as awesome as mine (Alex my friend, you are AWESOME!!)

Enchanting Edinburgh

My visit to Edinburgh was in early September 2015 and I was lucky enough to stay with a friend in Portobello (thanks Sonya!). It was around the time when the Fringe Festival was on, so accommodation was either hard to get or you ended up paying extortionate amounts of money. I enjoyed walking along the Royal Mile and seeing the Old Town. Given that the weather was fantastical (!!!), I also hiked up to Arthur’s seat where the views of Edinburgh were spectacular. I caught the sunset at Calton Hill, which was simply breathtaking. A trip to Edinburgh wouldn’t be complete without going on a Harry Potter walking tour (definitely recommend this!!). Our guide was a young undergraduate university student who was dressed in a gown and had a wand in his hand. We were shown where JK Rowling took some of her inspirations for her novels from – for a true fan this was simply awesome. A walk down Portobello “beach” was also very nice – look out for the coffee truck, the locals are extremely friendly while waiting in line. The Mosque Kitchen was my “go to” for really good food which also happened to be cheap. You’ll actually see loads of restaurants called “The Original Mosque Kitchen” but make sure you go to the one that is in the courtyard of the actual mosque – it’s open to all, in fact alot of local businessman go there for lunch.

I would definitely recommend visiting Edinburgh – there is loads to do in this magical enchanting city….

Perfectly peaceful Porto…

I’ve been to Porto a few times before, so this trip I simply wanted to chill out and enjoy the various neighbourhoods of Porto. Nevertheless, there was one thing on my list that I simply had to see: The Lello & Irmão Bookstore! Seeing as though I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, I just had to see it. BOY WAS IT AWESOME! The only thing was that there were too many people in here, this was all the time… Our Airbnb was close by, so we’d always have to go past the book store when going into town, we’d peek inside to see if it was full, sometimes we wouldn’t even have to peek given the huge line out front… In any case, it was still awesome – you should definitely check it out!

We hung out along the river Douro quite alot, and the night shots are taken on the city side of the river. On one of the days that we were just walking around, we crossed the Ponte Luis I bridge and there was a young man preparing to jump off the bridge and into the water. He was gathering a crowd before doing so…. he was fine. We then crossed the bridge and saw a whole bunch of people jumping into the water (disclaimer it was boiling hot!!). There was even a group of men dressed up in weird outfits, continuously jumping into the water – it was actually quite funny!

We stayed in an Airbnb on Rua de Cedofeita, our hosts were really nice and the apartment itself was bright and spacious. Great location as it was where the locals mainly lived, so there was also local bakeries and grocery stores. The end of the street towards the city was pedestrianised and was a shopping street.

In terms of food, we found amazing restaurants on Rua das Taipas. The first one we discovered was called Tia Orlanda, which was food from Mozambique. The staff were amazing and the restaurant was VERY FULL! it seemed as though alot of people had booked prior to coming for dinner, we were lucky that there was one table for two. The food was simply amazing, plus it was cheap! The second place we discovered was at the bottom of the street (I can’t recall the name) but we had fish and rice – was amazing! We sat at the back, outside, where we had a view of Porto – truly amazing! I would definitely recommend exploring this street as the restaurants were cheap yet also really good!