Scotland

We had a great long weekend in Scotland - although, as our first vacation with a baby, there was a bit of a learning curve (i.e. what types of places we felt comfortable eating at, expectations for what we could realistically do in a day, etc). All in all though, it went well. Everyone in Scotland was so unbelievably friendly - people were stopping us to see Charlotte, a woman on the street stopped us to tell us about some statue we were walking past, even the guy on the phone who took our pizza order was asking us where we were from and how we were liking Scotland. Here are some pics and a recap:

Friday in Edinburgh.
It rained and rained and rained. So we started off with a whisky tour and Matt did a tasting.

We walked around a lot, and Matt and I were soaking wet, so we stopped for a coffee to warm up, and Charlotte modeled her new hat:
Charlotte stayed nice and warm and dry in her stroller:
Saturday in St. Andrews
We picked up the car from the rental place at the train station in Edinburgh and drove to St. Andrews. This is why we LOVE traveling in the off-season and why it actually works in our favor that we don't drive manual. We reserved an economy 4-door automatic, which the website said would be a Jetta. When we showed up to collect the car, the only automatic 4-door they had for us was this beautiful Mercedes. So we got the luxury car at the economy price! Needless to say, Matt enjoyed driving it:
The ruins of St. Andrew's Castle:
The ruins of St. Andrew's Cathedral:
The Old Course at St. Andrew's:
More golf course photos:

Click on this and read the sign in the window:
Sunday at Sterling Castle

Sterling Castle from afar:

View from Sterling Castle

Matt and Charlotte entering Sterling Castle
Sunday back in Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle. The weather had been so bad on Friday that the castle was closed, so we got a chance to see it Sunday afternoon.
More of Edinburgh:
The entrance to Edinburgh Castle:
We had a classic Miling travel moment when it was time to return the rental car at the train station and catch our train back to Stevenage. Due to some technical difficulties getting the stroller into its travel case, and a hungry baby, and getting a bit lost navigating back to the train station, we arrived at the rental car parking lot at 4:46 needing to catch a 4:51 train. We literally yanked everything out of the car, pulled Charlotte out of her car seat, chucked the car keys in the drop box, and ran across the parking lot to the platform for the train. We had about 10 seconds to spare, but we made our train.