Day 2: From Edinburgh to Fort William
After a fairly restful night for me and a mediocre night for my family, we started the day with a hearty breakfast.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much choice at our hotel. Lots of sweets and puff pastry, a little sausage, no eggs and no selection of bread rolls. We therefore loaded up on croissants and toast plus butter and jam. My personal highlight was the conveyor belt toaster from Buffalo. I don’t think you can toast more inefficiently or waste energy more efficiently =D.
Fortunately, packing went very quickly as we had only booked one night. We wanted to make our way to Fort William in a rental car from Arnold Clark Car & Van Rental. We had planned two stops on the way: Linlithgow and the Kelpies in Falkirk.
We took the streetcar from the Gyre Center towards Inglisten Park and Ride. So far so easy. But we realized that there were no clear signs to get to our car rental on foot. Google Maps was absolutely no help, nor was the staff at the park and ride, who also used Google Maps. So we initially followed the road without a sidewalk. It was only along the main road that a sidewalk brought us closer to our destination. But Arnold Clark doesn’t have a pedestrian-friendly entrance either, so once again we only had the car entrance.
The registration process started relatively smoothly. Until my passport was due! Suddenly the question arose: Where has it gone? I rummaged through the suitcase and took it apart… No sign of the passport. Finally I found it hidden in my backpack. The service employee couldn’t help but make a humorous comment about it. If I had been in her shoes, I would have been amused too. It seems to happen more often.
We had actually reserved an Opel Insignia with a manual gearbox, but were given an Audi A4 with an automatic instead. For driving in a foreign country and getting to grips with left-hand traffic, automatic transmission is not bad in principle. But if you don’t like it, you won’t find a car with manual transmission at Arnold Clark. Surprisingly, we found that four people with four pieces of checked luggage and four rucksacks (hand luggage) could only fit into the station wagon by squeezing. It shouldn’t have been more!
The Tetris game was done, now it was time to move on to Mario Card. Accustomed to driving on the right, I now sat in a car adapted for left-hand traffic for the first time. As the driver, you sit on the right-hand side. This seating position felt much more comfortable and natural to me.
It was surprisingly quick and easy to mentally switch which hand to use for changing gears, indicating and steering. It’s important to familiarize yourself with the car before you start and to be aware of where which buttons, levers and switches are and then to concentrate on the traffic. To practise, we first did two laps of the car rental company’s premises. Under the amused eyes of a waiting employee, we tested the functions of the Audi and practiced parking again. The employee finally waved us amusedly towards the exit. How many times a day do the employees see something like this – mainland Europeans driving on the right in an island car driving on the left?
We were immediately in the middle of the local traffic and the adventure on the road began. First hurdle: a traffic circle. In my opinion, the traffic circles and exits in England are much more confusing and worse signposted than in Germany and there is much more information on the road.
When we finally got onto the highway, a sigh of relief went through the car. Things could only get more relaxed now. I smoothly wound the car along the motorway, but not for too long. We reached our first destination after about 20 minutes of driving: Linlithgow.
Linlithgow is a town west of Edinburgh and the birthplace of Mary Stuart, known as Mary I Queen of Scots (1542-1567). A beautiful little town just outside Edinburgh, with fairly narrow streets, the typical small gray-brown British-style buildings and an old castle, Linlithgow Palace. Finding a parking space is not necessarily difficult. In some places these are also free of charge (for example at the cemetery heading west).
Unfortunately, Linlithgow Palace is currently surrounded by fences for restoration work.
Nevertheless, the associated St. Michael Church is accessible and the outdoor facilities are also freely accessible. A very beautiful church, by the way, and neither too pompous nor too simple, with a tower whose spire is reminiscent of Sauron’s crown. The ruins were rather sparsely visited.
Linlithgow Palace and St. Michael’s Church are situated on a lake, Linlithgow Loch. Due to the small number of visitors and the idyllic location, it is definitely worth a detour.
After a quick lunch in the Linlithgow Burghall Cafe, we continued on to Falkirk. Even from the highway, you can see two huge horse heads made of metal plates, the Kelpies. The horses have been transformed into interaction. One of the horses raises its head sideways, while the other lowers its head. A typical scene if you often watch carriages while the four-legged friends are shaking. The surrounding area is very extensive and outside the city limits. You can easily spend two to three hours here.
Kelpies are water spirits that appear in the form of neglected horses, among other things. According to legend, these can be seen on the Scottish coast and in the lochs inland. The supposed helpers pretend to guide hikers across the water. But as soon as you saddle up, they pull you into the depths and swallow you up. Only those who throw a veil over the Kelpies’ heads can use their services unharmed.
The rest of our journey finally took us through the Loch Lomand region and the Highlands to our destination of Fort William. The roads meandered along the foot of the mountains. They are extremely uneven and sometimes have sharp bends. Bends are often marked with direction boards, which show how pronounced the curves are depending on the number of arrows. In addition, there are often red signs that once again indicate the severity of the bend. You quickly get a feel for the speed and road layout. However, you have to drive with great concentration, as the roads are much narrower than in Germany.
