Like every year when I can, I headed to Ypres to pay homage to fallen clansmen, together with members of other Scottish clans in Belgium.
Personal Site & Travel Blog
Tag: coffee
A day with nothing planned, and a special offer from Eurostar, that can only mean one thing: day trip to London! By sheer coincidence, there was a beer festival on the day I visited, so all of a sudden, that became my main destination.
The annual Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade was about to set sail, so I put on my Pride of LGBT tartan kilt, and headed to Amsterdam, to run the Amsterdam Hash House Harriers’ “Gay for a Day” trail again, and of course watch the parade!
Last full day of my trip, but I was not about to slow down! On this Monday’s schedule: a visit to the Isle of Bute, and my last run in Scotland for a while…
After breakfast at Social Bite—I really appreciate what they are doing for the less fortunate—I still had time for a coffee at Riverhill Coffee Bar, before catching my ScotRail train in Glasgow Central.
I had to get to get onto a ferry in Wemyss Bay, but its train station actually was an attraction in itself!
The CalMac ferry brought me from Wemyss Bay to Rothesay, on the Isle of Bute. It was quite windy on deck, so some people might have seen more of me than I intended! The risks of wearing a kilt…
The Bute Museum is a cute little museum, but you don’t need much more than half an hour to see everything. That meant I had to some time left to visit Bonnie Bling, a jewellery maker also serving coffee from the local Isle of Bute Coffee roasters.
After that Rothesay Castle finally reopened after its lunch break. Once again I was confronted with Norwegian king Hakon… In the courtyard they were even flying the Norwegian flag, alongside the Saltire and the Buteshire flag!
After escaping from the prison pit, I headed to the Bute Yard. It’s a magnificent space, but a bit empty on a Monday afternoon, and no food vendors. Luckily the bar of the Bute Brew Co. was open, so I enjoyed a couple of their beers.
After returning to the mainland, I skipped a train and take some time to have fish & chips from Macari’s, a place that was highly recommended to me. No place to eat in inside, but luckily the seagulls left me in piece while I enjoyed my food sitting on a bench outside.
Back in Glasgow I had just enough time to get changed in the hotel, and take the beloved subway—finally, because they were on strike when I wanted to use it earlier—to Inn Deep.
There I met up with the Glasgow H3—for the third time already—to run and drink with them along the river Kelvin and beyond.
Since I still had all my packing to do, after the last beer at Inn Deep, I then went straight back to the hotel.
Even though I’m staying in Glasgow, this Sunday I headed east again, even past Edinburgh, to Dirleton Castle in East Lothian…
I didn’t take the ScotRail train back to Edinburgh, and then a 90 minute bus, to visit Dirleton Castle, though. I got up at 7.30 and travelled all that way, just to run with the Edinburgh H3, for the very first time! It was a lovely run though: very sunny, great sights, and we came very close to getting on some sandy beaches again! And it seems almost inevitable when running in Scotland: we passed yet another golf course…
I didn’t stick around for lunch at The Castle Inn, since it would already take me long enough to get back to Glasgow.
After a shower and change in the hotel, I had my highly necessary coffee at Laboratorio Espresso. Then I checked out the guest beer list at the Innis & Gunn Brewery Taproom. Well, it was short this time…
For dinner I went to Buck’s Bar. Not sure why I put this place on my list, but I think The King burger on the menu had something to do with that: fried chicken with spicy peanut and sriracha satay sauce with sweet chilli jam.
The day ended with a couple of beers in very pleasant company at Stereo.
